Wild thing

Last night, I went to a flow class at Pure, my favourite studio. It takes a lot to motivate me to go to a Friday night class. My biggest motivation was knowing Sasha was teaching. She’s a great teacher all the time, but something about her Friday night class is pure bliss.

She had us do lots of downward dogs, of course, but we also flipped our dogs into wild thing. I love, love, love wild thing. And not just because of the name. There’s something about having my whole world turned upside down that I really enjoy!

While we were in wild thing, she said we could put our hand down and come into wheel. This is where I always get stuck. My hand is nowhere near the ground, and if I try to get it there, I usually fall over.

This morning, before heading to a power class with Edith, I decided to experiement and see if I could figure it out.

I started off in a regular down dog, then lifted my right knee up, making it the highest point. Three legged dog.

Then, I flipped my dog, landing my right foot beside my left, and reached forward and up. Wild thing.

I looked at the pictures, which acted as a delayed mirror, and saw that the fingers on my right hand were pointing to the front. In wheel, your fingers point towards your toes. I thought maybe this was my problem, so I tried turning my hand before flipping my dog.

Yeah, no. Didn’t work. Don’t do this. It hurt. Also, I fell down, but that’s nothing new.

After all this time spent trying to get into wheel pose, I really wanted to do it. So I did. The old-fashioned way. From the floor! Wheel pose.

When I got to the studio today, I aksed Edith what to do. She suggested playing around with the placement of my feet. She also said it was a good idea to turn my fingers in towards my toes, but only once both hands were on the ground. We didn’t do it in class and afterwards, I was completely limp and wobbly, so I’ll try tomorrow!