I think most of you are aware of the Operation Beautiful project. Well today’s the day that the Operation Beautiful book gets published. Caitlin, health blogger, OB founder and now published author (yay!) has asked the blogosphere in general for their take on body image. So here’s mine. It’s based on a post I wrote earlier in the year on image and yoga (what else).
Incidentally, American Readers, Caitlin is on the Today Show at 10am EST on Thursday 5th August!
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The Image of Yoga
I do read Yoga Journal and it’s UK equivalent Yoga & Health (I even write for the latter one), I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cover shot that isn’t of very slim, Caucasian women bending their “perfect” bodies into gymnastic postures. Sometimes it’s enough to make anyone give up. What about the tattoed, crooked backed women who will never get their head on their foot in Pigeon Pose (and yes YJ I’m willing to pose for a cover shot if you’re reading)? What about all the beautifully curvacious yoginis out there? What about the graceful older yogini? What about the non-Caucasian? What, even, about the men?
We need images that inspire us to keep practicing despite, or even because of, our individual limitations – which, incidentally, we do all have. Images that remind us that this practice that we have right now is yoga, that we are not waiting to practice yoga until we can attain a posture akin to a Yoga Journal cover shot. Asana is only one of the eight limbs of yoga – a precursor if you will to the practices of pranayama and meditation and bliss itself.
With this in mind then, we can begin to realise that we do not have to be a certain build, or be of a certain flexibility to practice yoga. It doesn’t matter if we can’t perform every asana “perfectly”. Desikachar says that yoga is “to attain what was previously unattainable”. That “unattainable” is different for everybody.
Your yoga is beautiful right now, just as it is!
How’s your yoga, on or off the mat today?
