I have chronically tight shoulders. Maiga, my instructor, attributes them to years of grad school, I know that years of stress and worry well preceded the yoga. My practice for the past several months has been to open and stretch them, drop them from around my ears.
Today I learned something more about these tight muscles. Maiga encouraged us to breathe into the back body and “Broaden your back and shoulders” and I immediately felt myself resist. A memory came full into my mind of my mother saying to me with a mix of disappointment and pity that I had inherited her broad shoulders. I was probably 13. I was only just beginning to see my body through the lenses of others. And I began to curl my shoulders in.
Hunched over and curled in is a pose I’ve perfected over the past 40 years since that day. I try to look small, when I’m feeling insecure or heavy or ugly, I pull them up and forward, hoping that they will resemble the petite bird-like collarbones I’ve always wished to have. And now Maiga was asking me to open them to their widest, broadest shape. To breathe fully into what is present, what is mine.
I remember being able to carry my son on my shoulders on long walks, just the two of us. I remember offering my shoulder to grieving friends, crying babies and sleeping kittens. …..
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