How do you navigate your world when it goes upside down, backwards or just plain hard? Notice I didn’t say ‘if’. It’s a sure thing that if you’ve got a body, sooner or later you’ll be up against a challenge in this world. If you know they are part of life, why not get better and better at handling them? Challenges help you discover who you are and how you handle adversity. Understanding how you respond is important and useful information. If you can be more skilled it can be the difference between successfully navigating a difficult course or crashing out. When given that choice, always chose successfully navigating! But alas, as in anything you have to practice handling challenging courses in order to get skillful at managing them. How do you get more skilled you ask? Put a challenge on the mat in front of you and now navigate it.
Every yogi has a pose or two that puts their whole self on the line. These poses put you up against your stuff and demand you deal with it. Or walk away. You know these poses. They toss themselves in front of you and ask, ‘are you in or are you out’?   They mock you. They demand your full commitment and yet they are fickle friends. They are a hair’s breadth away from dismissing you every time you give them a try.  But, when you go after them skillfully, systematically, with dedication and a desire to have fun trying, they become accessible. And even if you have a structural limitation, or injury that prevents you from going to the max with the pose, there are so many variations that can hold victory, beauty and success for you. Ultimately, when you work a pose in an efficient manner, you can’t help but be empowered. And that my friends, is reason number 2 to practice challenging poses.
Empowerment. I could have easily put here ‘confidence’. You gain a lot of confidence in yourself as your strength builds and your capacity and skills deepen.  I love to tackle a pose and run it down from every side. I think about all the times I have sustained an intense practice after not sleeping well or not having the perfect protein combination and I am empowered to trust myself more. I can do so much without perfect circumstances. I don’t need everything to be ‘just so’ in order to be successful. Because, truly, when is everything ‘just so’ in the face of a challenge? Being able to think through a pose and try new approaches builds flexibility of the mind. There is more than one solution to a problem off the mat, why wouldn’t there be this same situation on the mat?
Asana Diagnostics was born from the desire to empower students.  If I can offer a way of unlocking a challenging pose so that you can access its essence then you experience empowerment. You develop skills that get you where you want to go.  You have figured a way through.  At work, they call this a ‘work around’.  It’s basically skillfully navigating a challenge in a totally different way but getting a desirable end result.  That’s what a Skill Builder does.  That’s what a Pose Variation offers.
Going forward, discovering, progressing, you find you have worked harder than ever and have had the most fun doing it.  The thrill of the hunt and the discovery of the next ‘ah ha’ moment keeps you excited and willing to continue. You cannot get this type of fun, this type of effort and reward with the poses that are easy. They only come from the challenging ones.
So this week, practice a pose you don’t often do because it is a challenge. Instead, step into it, work it many times from different angles, chew on it, work the actions and really establish a relationship with it. Practice wisely, practice with determination, practice with the idea that you can have fun with the pose. Watch as you get stronger and more flexible on every level. Watch as you become more confident and empowered. Watch as you see these same skills slip right off the mat and come with you into that next big meeting; that next big life event. You can do it. Next week we’ll take a look at another reason to practice challenging poses; the opportunity to develop discipline.  Yah, I know, how can that be fun? Oh, my friends, but it is. Stay tuned.
