Are You Support Systems Keeping You Stuck?

By the time I discovered Katonah Yoga in 2019, I had been practicing yoga for over 20 years and had completed almost 300 hours of teacher trainings.

For most of those two decades, I modified many poses by using yoga blocks under my hands.

I propped up my hands in downward dog and chaturanga, in triangle, side angle, pyramid pose, and half moon. In pretty much any pose where I had to be in my legs and reach the floor, I “brought the floor to me” by using blocks.

The Moment That Changed My Yoga Practice

Everything changed when I showed up at a Katonah Yoga class at The Studio in NYC. In my first class with studio owner Abbie Galvin, she told me to remove the block from under my hand in side angle pose.

She explained that with my hand on the block, I was holding myself up with my upper body instead of with my legs. I was putting all of my weight in my shoulder.

Abbie’s admonition to remove the blocks from under my hands was a stark contrast from the typical yoga teacher guidance to “find your expression of the pose” and “modify the pose to fit your body.”

I was instantly resistant.

I gripped tightly to my story that I needed the block under my hand to do the pose, that I couldn’t reach the floor with my hand. I had always practiced with a block under my hand — this was the way I did it.

To Abbie, this was the problem: she told me to stop making the pose personal to me.

Reluctantly, I relented.

And it was a game-changer.

As it turned out, I didn’t need the block under my hand.

I discovered that by lengthening my stance, I was able to find the fit of my knee to my armpit and ground my hand on the floor inside of my front foot.

Breaking the Pattern to Access Potential

For two decades, I had believed that a block under my hand in certain poses was supportive. This kept me in a pattern that wasn’t serving me.

Modifying the pose to suit my limitations had simply maintained those limitations.

Using a block under my hand blocked me from accessing my hips and building the strength in my legs that would free up my torso. It created unnecessary pressure in my shoulders, which caused recurring injuries.

With the block under my hands, what I thought was my “full expression in the pose” wasn’t really my expression. It was a form of masking. I was doing the pose to make it appear how I thought it should appear, but I wasn’t truly being in the pose.

In the warrior poses, it’s the grounding of the legs that frees up the torso, which is our potential.

I could only start to get there by interrupting my pattern and removing the block from under my hands.

Finding the Right Support to Actualize Potential

In yoga, blocks can be supportive — when we put them in the right place.

When I put blocks under my legs, or — even better — when I show up to class and receive support from fellow teachers who can adjust me in the pose, I can start to feel what it’s like to be in the pose instead of trying so hard to do the pose.

With the right support and scaffolding, I can start to free up my torso and access my potential.

A Mirror For Life Off the Mat

The practice of yoga on the mat is simply a mirror of how we practice life off the mat. The patterns that we see in the physical practice of yoga are same patterns we have in life.

Sometimes, the tools that we rely on for support can actually mask incompetencies and prevent us from accessing our full capacity.

We must be willing to disrupt ourselves — to break our personal patterns of how we do something — in order to discover our true potential and our fullest expression of our “pose” in life.

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Where are you feeling stuck or blocked from accessing your true potential?

Both on the yoga mat and off the mat, I help my clients see the patterns that are keeping them stuck, remove the blocks that are in their way, and create supportive structures that help them access their true potential.

Contact me to explore further how we can work together to help you fully express yourself in every part of life.