I did a little more yoga today.

Legs quaking in high lunge, I remembered what a yoga teacher told me nearly a decade ago. Instead of concentrating on holding the pose, find the points of opposition — the places where forces press into one another creating steadiness.

In crescent pose you can feel your front leg wobble and summon whatever strength remains from your quad. Or, you can notice your back leg and visualize it pulling towards the front leg like a pair of scissors. The back leg is working just as hard as that trembling quad in the front leg, but there’s a way to understand this not as a doubling of effort but as a counterbalance.

Today a friend asked me how I was doing. My response: barely holding it together / in possession of everything I need.

Sort of like Anjaneyasana.

Don’t clench. Find relationship between the parts. Let them exist together.

( Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash )