Hashtagging My Actual Yoga

I’ve been prepping my Portland workshops at yogaRIOT this weekend (there’s still room so come join me if you’re in the area!), which will conclude Sunday afternoon with “Better Backbends Through Breathing.” One of the slides in my presentation is a 1983 photo of me in Ustrasana (Camel Pose). It got me wondering what the 25-year-old version of my body would look like alongside my 58-year-old 2016 Camel Pose. So, I asked Lydia to take a photo of me on the mat in our living room so she could combine them in a single visual.

Seeing the resulting image got me thinking about all the old photos I have of me doing asana, and how they would compare to my present-day versions. I’ve also been thinking for a while about how difficult it is to visually depict how yoga practice shows up in off-the-mat situations, because so often, it’s a very internal process that does not make for a particularly interesting photo-op.

Uniting these two musings, I will henceforth supplement my Instagram, Twitter and Facebook feeds with images tagged #MyActualYoga.  You are welcome to use the hashtag as well if you have interesting before/after asana images to share, or if you can find a visual way to represent how yoga shows up in your daily life.  You can see examples of both in this post.

Let’s put something different on Instagram yoga feeds! It may not be pretty, but it will be real.

Camel Pose 1983-2016Switching Hands

Comments (3)

I love this! Question about your later camel: are you refrained no from dropping your neck back in order to protect it, or is that how far it goes, or something else? Also, I can’t tell by looking at the photo whether you are tucking your toes or again, has your front line become less “stretchy”? Thanks for sharing and … it IS pretty – pretty awesome!

That was how far back my head went on that day – having not been particularly warmed up. My toes were tucked.

On other days, I can go further with more prep, but I was ok showing my more limited Camel just for the sake of comparison.

Thanks Leslie. I really appreciate your work.

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