Politics are (probably) bad for backbending

This, at least, is my preliminary conclusion after this morning's practice. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been thinking and talking a lot of politics this past week on this blog. I wonder if this has affected my backbending: Getting into Kapotasana was grueling this morning. Despite hanging for eight to ten breaths, it still took a tremendous amount of effort to get my hands to my heels. Of course, I suppose I could have just not tried to go for the heels and taken it a little easier on myself this morning; but there's just something about Kapo as far as I'm concerned: Once I get my hands anywhere on my foot, there's this powerful drive (is this ego, I wonder?) to walk my hands, inch by grueling inch, until they grab the heels.

What has difficulty in doing Kapotasana got to do with politics, you may ask? Well, here's one theory: People tend to store a lot of tension in their psoas, which results in tight psoas, which results in difficult backbending. And talking and thinking about politics brings up a lot of anger and anxiety, which might lead to more tension and tightness in the psoas.

But this theory doesn't seem to hold water in my case. Bhekasana, which demands a lot from the psoas, came really easily to me this morning. Got both my heels to the ground just like that. So maybe it's not the psoas that is being tightened by all that politics; maybe it's someplace somewhere higher up in the body, like the upper or middle back? I don't know, one way or the other. Just thinking aloud here. Or maybe politics has nothing to do with any of this at all; maybe the body (and mind) is just more stiff on certain days. Oh well. 

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