Rodney Yee on fragility
“Why wouldn’t someone want to feel fragile? I think fragility is one of the most underrated things as a human being. I believe that we’re doing yoga so we can be strong enough to be fragile. I mean, we are fragile, and we’re living in a society where we could easily be destroyed-psychologically, emotionally and physically-so why shouldn’t we feel fragile? Life is on a silk thread hanging like a cocoon from a tree, and it’s a fragile thing. I don’t think yoga is to keep you from feeling fragile. I think it’s to enable you to be consciously fragile but still feel like, ‘I’m fine with this fragility.’” – Rodney Yee, interviewed in his book Yoga:the poetry of the body
John said:
Dec 02, 09 at 7:10 pmThanks for posting this Emily. I went to your site hoping to find the reference. When you read it in class the other night it really resonated with a lot of things I’ve been feeling lately. I’ve felt this before, but I can’t remember feeling it as intensely as I do now. I know how I’ve dealt with it before– insert here the myriad ways our culture has developed to distract us from this– and I don’t want to go that way again. When I began doing yoga this year it was with the conscious intention of making changes I felt that I needed to make because I was feeling disconnected. But is it possible that yoga has caused me to feel this intense “fragility”? Is this fragility a type of melancholy? Is it a step on the way to becoming re-connected? Or is it just S.A.D.? Should I just get one of those lights and pop some pill? Dive into that ice-cream? etc. etc. Or do I work through this with daily, intentional practice? So far yoga hasn’t removed the feeling– if anything quite the opposite– but I’m becoming less afraid of embracing it. Your reading that quote from Yee was very helpful.
Thanks, J.
admin said:
Dec 03, 09 at 7:32 amThanks for sharing your experience John. These are all really great questions. I don’t think yoga causes you to feel any particular feeling but I do think that it will reveal the feelings already present within you. Just as you wrote, we are masters at distraction and when we practice yoga, when we take the time to connect honestly with ourselves, whatever is lying beneath our busy minds will be revealed. Is it a type of melancholy? Perhaps. I think of it as a tenderness, and this tenderness is very much connected to feeling our hearts, where there is sadness. There is also a sense of letting go of our need to control. We control in order to feel only certain things and to make our lives happen in a particular way. When we let go of this, the tender, more difficult feelings can be explored. I think daily, intentional practice is a great way to work with what’s there. Although there is sadness and fragility, there is also an opening that is happening for you. The tenderness that you feel in yoga allows you to connect with your heart. The more you can be with this, the more you will connect with all the other feelings that also live there, like joy and compassion and love. As one of my teachers so wisely told me “the only way through is through”. Now that you have begun the journey there is no going back. I encourage you to continue to explore and to hold all of what you discover with gentleness, as if you were holding a small child.
John said:
Dec 08, 09 at 7:31 amHi Emily,
I don’t want to take up more of your time, but I just wanted to say that I’m very thankful for your response to what I said. I’ve been keeping it in mind as I work with this. It’s a really interesting adventure! As you said: “How can we ever be bored?!”
John
Alice Neiley said:
Dec 18, 09 at 9:24 pmAs if I needed a reminder as to why you mean so much to me as a teacher, and a friend, this is it. That being said, I’ve never needed a reminder, but still…..wonderful, useful, and truly connecting post. See you soon!