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photo ↬ Beginners Guide to Tumbling for Cheerleading

My Thoughts: The Bikram Standing Backbend

Wow. I mean, wow. Where should I start? Ok, umm. This is a pose that makes my stomach feel like eating itself alive would probably be less scary.

I believe I’m not the only one. My girlfriend, who practices Hot Hatha occasionally, told me the other day about a pose that makes her feel like her “spine is going to break any moment”. I asked, “Do you mean this?” and performed the standing backbend, and she went, “YES!!! That one!!!” 

I love backbends. I like the standing one that lets me put my hands on my lower back. I like wheel, and bow, and camel, and etc. But not this one. This one, I don’t have my hands to help me. This one, I want to puke.

I believe part of my fear comes from the fact that I may be doing it wrong. There’s a crimping feeling in my lower back when I perform this pose most of the time, and this exacerbates the fear of the backbend, no less. When you feel like your spine is going to break? That’s when the fear creeps in. The mind loses focus, it starts scrambling for some semblance of security (but there is none to offer because your hands are up in the air, thanks to instructions from dear Bikram) and all comes crashing down. And it’s perfectly legit. A life without a working spine is a life I can’t even imagine.

The hardest part about a backbend is not the bending process, but shutting out the military-like instructions from teachers and letting your body fall as naturally as it can. “Go deeper! Bend deeper! Look back more. LOOK BACK!!” Hey, I’m only human. When I hear a barrage of backbending instructions, my first instinct – compounded by my fear of falling backwards without the support of my hands – is to follow them. Without thought.

And that’s where it goes all wrong. Because I forget to lift up. I forget about my chest, and shoulders, and arms, and waist. I am too busy making a mad dash for the back wall with my frantic, crazy eyes. I am trying, so damn hard, to get my hands down to my face. And wondering why, this – everything – is not working but it’s getting so, damn, hard, to breathe. Gasp.

It took me a while to figure this out: the more you lift your chest up and forward with each breath, the easier – and more natural – the backbend becomes. It’s hard to get the mind to adjust to this instruction during a backbend especially because moving “up and forward” in a back bend is like asking the body to go up when your destination is down.

I won’t waffle on about how lifting up makes a huge difference. Just try it. Whenever you feel afraid: stop, stop paying attention to your eyes and ears, take a breath, and lift your chest up. It may take you “back” just a little, but you’ll go into your back bend way deeper and more fearlessly, just like those cheerleaders above.

Articles iLike:

• OhMyBikram: Backbends are good for you
• Yoga Journal: Don’t squeeze the butts