My Disdain of The Wheel

Now, before you go off thinking I'm hateful towards the object that makes the bus go 'round, I'll clarify to say this post is about the yoga pose called the wheel - Urdvadanurasana. I HATE this pose. We haven't had to do it since last winter and I'd forgotten the sheer loathing it evokes in me.

Last night we had to do it not once, not twice, but three times. In a row.

Why do I dislike this pose, you ask?

I'll tell you why. I can get up into it just fine. Sometimes my wrists feel a little jammed, but overall it isn't particularly hard. My dislike comes from the emotional after effects. It makes me hateful. I get irritated, snapish and all around ugly after doing it. Several hours later when I try to go to sleep I can't. When I finally fall asleep I wake up frequently during the night. All of that makes for a sucky day after (like today) when I feel off from not sleeping and my stomach is a bit unsettled.

From an energetic standpoint most yoga poses are either calming or energizing. Backbends are big-time energizers. The wheel is probably the most energizing and targets the 3rd and 4th chakras which are associated with sense of self and the heart center respectively. They are located at the solar plexus (stomach area) and center of the chest (heart area). It is not lost on me that I have stomach issues after doing it along with some emotional stirring up. It is also not lost on me that when I've done my meditation practice from the summer to now, negotiating the heart center has proved difficult. Most of the meditations focus on moving some sort of light/energy through the spine and skull. When I get to the heart area it is like a dense dark area that no light can penetrate through. Immediately above and below it, I can feel the energy/light and move it as needed.

So, what's a yogi in training to do? This weekend I'm going to try going to yoga on Sunday morning. Backbends are winter-time staples for Barbara, our teacher, so there's no avoiding them, but I wonder if the effects will be more positive if done earlier in the day. It is hard to get motivated to practice something that produces such yucky after effects, but maybe I need to delve into the yuck for a bit to wade through it and see what's on the other side.