Come Up Higher On the Toes

Above: my beautiful friend Bailey executing a fantastic toe stand on the beach.

Below: cowboy boots are great for tromping in leaves, but not for doing toe stand.

Toe stand is one of those crazy postures that doesn't seem possible at all when you first start Bikram yoga. I love it because the entire standing series prepares you for it: pure concentration, only the breath and the body, intense focus. 

Cowboy boots: fun to wear year round.

Toe stand: an under-appreciated master posture. It stretches the feet, the heel, the mind.

Cowboy boots: they give you incredible ass-kicking power!

How is your toe stand going? Does it make you feel powerful and centered? Which postures help calm your mind?

Poetry in the Posture: Toe Stand

Photo Via LifeInterstitial's Flickr Photostream.

So I've recently fallen in love with the last posture of the standing series: Toe Stand. A posture that will test your patience, develop your focus, and seriously work out the muscles in your feet, Toe Stand is a great one for yogis who have been attending Bikram awhile and really want to get deep into the meditation. Don't be worried if it takes you awhile -- it's a difficult posture to do -- but if you stick with it, the thrill of floating right above the floor will pay off. Plus, you free your knees and ankles of rheumatism, arthritis and gout, and you strengthen your stomach. Go, toe standers!


Also, a little poem dedicated to the posture. Enjoy, my yogis!

Balance Alone

We support ourselves

on point, on perfect

balance, both sides equal,

mind and body made even.

Steady eyes level

the mind. A gaze

goes a thousand miles,

a clear empty cloud –

being without thoughts the ideal –

goes farther.

Implausibility achieved:

what would appear to be

floating.

Our bodies made clear,

empty, like clouds

floating, hovering, we linger.

Our bodies made into birds,

small perched perfection

grown from a tree,

held closer to the ground

as if we were sparrows

who have been calmed,

no longer the flitting, stir-crazy

creatures they generally seem to be.

Here, we sit on our own energy.

We need not flit

from corner to corner

of a sidewalk, hopping,

making our own flittering

dance of jumps and nerves…

We are not sparrows.

We are still. We get here

by trust in our own bodies,

we carry this moment

motionless harmony of thoughtlessness –

the mind filled only by equilibrium,

balance alone –

what we bring to the beach,

the busy street,

the tallest woods,

prideful in their soaring limbs,

steady trunks…

the balanced bodies

we take home after class.