Prana Pages

The first time I ever tried frog pose was at a yoga bootcamp.  I’d never done more than a two hour yoga practice before, and here I had spent the entire day in hot and humid Mexico not enjoying the beach, but sweating in a yoga room, performing pose after pose, practicing, practice teaching, breaking down poses, ingesting, digesting, processing, constructing, deconstructing, balancing, breaking down, falling, standing, stretching, and pulling apart to putting back together pose after pose after pose.

Most of the class seemed to settle into frog pretty easily.  I struggled right from the start.  I tried doubling up my mat under my knees, rolling up a blanket under my knees, propping up on my elbows, stacking blocks under my chest, turning my head one way, then the other.  I had someone’s foot practically in my mouth, and I felt like my legs were about to pop off like my barbie’s did when I tried to make her do the center splits.  The teacher told jokes about frogs.  Students chimed in like it was a game.  I moaned, fidgeted, fussed, cried, screamed, itched, antsied, adjusted, readjusted, and never ever found a way to be still.  The only time I felt even a teensy bit of pleasure was when Charles told Baron to “Shut the F*&! Up!”  Charles was my hero then, but Baron didn’t listen.  All the while, my cute and super flexy husband next to me was laying flat, belly to the floor, with a look on his face that seemed like absolute bliss.  I told him I didn’t love him anymore.

This went on for thirty minutes.

Doing my time in frog pose wasn’t even close to the pinnacle of the experience for me.  The breakdown, or break through, or whatever it was, came after lunch the next day.  We were broken into four teams, and each team was supposed to come up with a team name that everybody on the team liked.  We were encouraged to speak up if we didn’t like something.  My team started throwing out ideas, I hated them all, and I wasn’t afraid to say so.  I tried to be kind about it, but after awhile, something just took over and I was Biotch-Queen.  Time was up, and the group settled on my least favorite selection.  I’ll never forget how cheesy and stupid I felt as Charles screamed “give me a Y” and my team echoed back to him through the entire chant of Yin-Yang Yogies.  I didn’t like Charles anymore after that.

It was about 2pm.   I walked out of the building to get some fresh air in the two minute break we had to set up for practice teaching after our stupid chants.  I never made it to practice teach.  Instead, I collapsed on the sand, curled up into a little ball in the sand and wished I could be a hermit crab.  I felt like my skin was being singed off my body at the same time as my vital organs were being burned out from the inside.  My teeth chattered like I was bitter cold, so hard that every bite felt like the dentist hitting a nerve.  I hyperventilated, I quit breathing, I gasped for breath, I stared off into space.  One of the assistants came to ask if I was okay, and I kicked at her, screamed at her to leave me alone.  Her touch on my skin felt like she was reaching right inside to pull out the marrow of my bones to keep for herself.  The pain, the emptiness, the anxiety, the fear, the loneliness, everything was just so overwhelming.  I couldn’t feel anything, and I felt everything all at the same time.

Then came the memories.

It was like they say in the movies, that you see your entire life flash before your eyes before you die.  I thought I was dying because my whole life was right there, but not like some movie screen, it was inside my body.  It was like every negative emotion, every physical injury, every illness, and every ailment I had ever experienced in my life were compounding in my body and my brain all at once.  I was no longer on the beach in Mexico, but I was on the asphalt road after I had been hit by a truck.  I was getting stitches in my head.  I was driving into oncoming traffic trying to commit suicide.  I remembered every negative experience of my life because I was reliving it all right there on the beach.

I no longer thought I was dying, but wished that I could die.  Or had I died, and this was hell?

I went in and out of consciousness like that for hours.  The assistants had long since stopped trying to talk me out of it or convince me to put my legs up the wall.  They had resigned themselves to taking shifts in watching me, from a safe distance.  Sometimes I would respond to them in mutters or whispers as they tried to talk to me, but then something they would say would always trigger another memory and send me back into my own personal hell.

Baron came to lead the evening yoga practice and stopped to talk to me in the sand.  I don’t remember what he said, or if I was even able to respond.  About an hour after that, one of the assistants managed to get me back into the yoga room for the end of the practice.

The rest of the night was a blur, but the next morning I was a new person.  Giddy, happy, joyful, playful, bouncy, ecstatic, enthused, sparkly, shiny, and bright.  We did frog every night.  It never got physically comfortable for me, but I was able to laugh at the stupid zen jokes.  I even kissed the big toe that was in my face.  And, I told my husband I loved him again.

Years later, practicing frog pose now brings the opposite effect to me.  I experience a state of complete ecstasy that erupts in the form of uncontrollable laughter, deep belly laughs, very uncharacteristic of my typical giggle.  If I’m in a class where the instructor holds frog pose for an extended time, it is not uncommon now for me to start this laughter (I can’t help it) and it becomes contagious throughout the room.  What was once the most dreaded pose I could ever imagine is now the most thrilling!

Frog pose gradually stretches the ligaments and tendons deep within the pelvic region.  This is where we store deep emotions.  In life, oftentimes emotion comes up at times where expression or processing of that emotion is either not possible at the time or not appropriate.  For example, often in times of trauma, such as a bad accident, out bodies protect us by going into shock, a state at which we do not feel the intensity of the pain that is occurring at the time (this was my case when I was hit by the truck).  But, that emotion and those feelings of pain must go somewhere, so they often hide in the hips, the pelvis.  Another trauma may release the pain at another time, or it may escape over time in little bursts.  Another example would be when we find something funny, but it is inappropriate to laugh out loud, or we deny ourselves laughter because we have been shamed to believe our laughter is “stupid” or “wrong”.  Thus, it is possible to hide feelings of joy and pleasure inside the pelvis as well.  Frog pose is a way to release those pent up emotions.  To process the pains, joys, pleasures, and traumas of our lives in a safe environment.  (Pigeon poses may also evoke such effects)

Alignment

• Shape your legs like frog legs:  thighs at ninety degrees from torso, shins at ninety degrees from thighs, feet at ninety degrees from shins
• Be sure to flex the feet outwards, this protects the knees
• Tilt the pelvis to neutral, keeping the pubic bone pulled in to “uddiyana” - avoiding “duck butt”
• Let gravity take the pose…this one pose where sinking into the ligaments of the joints is the intention…so let your muscles relax and surrender to the alignment

Benefits

• Relaxes tension and tightness in the pelvis, which can be healing to strains on the low back
• Releases pent up emotions
• Processes old traumas
• Promotes surrender
• Teaches acceptance with what is

Modifications

• For people with extremely tight or internally rotated hips, bad knees, or bad ankles, frog may be contra-indicated.  Try it laying on your back with legs in frog  up in the air.  Or try it like a wall-sit with back against a wall, squatting.
• Hindi squat is a good option as well…but for some, flat feet on the floor is impossible
• Variations of pigeon poses will have similar effects without the intensity
• As noted in the testimonial above, Frog can have dramatic effects.  Be sure to practice this pose is a safe environment, and with people who are well aware of the possible effects who can “hold the space” appropriately