September Pose of the Month
Our pose of the month is Warrior 3, Vīrabhadrāsana in Sanskrit. “Vira” means “Hero” in Sanskrit and “Bhadra” means “Auspicious”. This great fearsome hero was known as the warrior Vīrabhadrā and the myth behind the warrior was not a happy tale. The story is about a family feud between King Daksha and his beautiful daughter Sati, who married Shiva against her father’s wishes. Daksha despised Shiva and didn’t approve of their marriage so he cut her off from the family. He then decided to throw a grand soiree and to no surprise didn’t invite Shiva & Sati. Sati became very upset by this and decided to go to the party anyway to confront her father and try to mend their relationship, in hopes that she could get him to finally accept her marriage to Shiva.
The reunion with her father didn’t go well however and when Sati still failed to seek her father’s approval she became extremely sad, humiliated, and defeated. In one version of this myth it says she ends her own life to sever ties with her father by throwing herself into the sacrificial fires at the party. In another version, it says she goes into a deep meditative state to increase her own inner fire, which ignites a fire that burns so brightly inside her that she goes up in flames right in the middle the party… leaving a pile of ashes before her father’s very eyes.
When she died of course Shiva was heartbroken. Then he became enraged and decided he wanted revenge, so in an angry rage he ripped one of his dreadlocks out from his head and threw it on the ground. The Warrior Vīrabhadrā was then created and ordered by Shiva to go to the party to kill everyone in the kingdom and behead Daksha. The massive thousand armed, three eyed, fiery haired warrior and manifestation of Shiva’s grief and anger did as he was told. However, when Shiva saw the aftermath of the battle his anger was replaced with sorrow and remorse. He healed all the gods that were slained and brought his father-in-law, Daksha, back to life by giving him a new head of a goat. Daksha and the other gods forgave Shiva and honored him for his compassion, naming him the “Shankar”, which means “kind and benevolent one”.
It is said that Vīrabhadrāsana I (Warrior 1 pose) represents the moment when the warrior Vīrabhadrā arrived at Daksha's kingdom. He did so by thrusting his whole body up through the earth with his sword held by both hands overhead.
Vīrabhadrāsana II (Warrior 2 pose) represents the moment he made his presence known with his sword ready to strike, his focus on his target.
Vīrabhadrāsana III (Warrior 3 pose) represents the moment he took action. He lifted his sword into the air and quickly and precisely severed the head of King Daksha.
There are many lessons that can be taken away from this story. Vīrabhadrā can be seen as a metaphor for how we strive to overcome our own weaknesses, rising up out of our own limitations. The journey to become a warrior starts with how we face those weaknesses with acceptance and the desire to want to do our best, even when the journey gets tough.
There is no such thing as perfection. Even the strongest warrior is born flawed, like the strong warrior manifestation of Shiva, Vīrabhadrā. Just as there is no such thing as a perfect “self”, there is also no such thing as a perfect life. It isn’t always rainbows and butterflies, but who ever said it was supposed to be? With acceptance and the desire/the will, we can overcome our weaknesses and the challenges in our life by tapping into the courage, unwavering focus, and determination that lives within us… even in our darkest moments when we can’t see it and feel helpless and hopeless… our Warrior Self is there.
When we practice warrior poses we are not celebrating and condoning violence, but instead we acknowledge that our own spiritual warriors are doing battle on a daily basis with our own ego (Daksha) and ignorance ( Shiva & his incarnation Vīrabhadrā), which is the cause of all our internal suffering. Practicing warrior poses help us to cultivate the mental, emotional, and spiritual strength and courage to do the right thing under difficult circumstances.
The fourth agreement in Don Miguel Ruiz’s book The Four Agreements is “Always do your best.”
“Under any circumstance, always do your best, no more and no less. But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next. Everything is alive and changing all the time, so your best will sometimes be high quality, and other times it will not be as good. If you always do your best there is no way you can judge yourself, and if you don’t judge yourself there is no way you are going to suffer from guilt, blame, and self-punishment.” - Don Miguel Ruiz
Every day is a new beginning and thus a new opportunity to do our best. When it comes to reaching our personal goals and managing the unexpected twist and turns in life, we are constantly in battle with ourselves. We can choose to not take action and let our ego take control in those moments- that little voice inside your head that tells you that you can't do it, your not good enough, its too hard or impossible so why bother, I don't feel like it, etc.- or we can choose to take action and do our best. In the end, even if our best doesn’t produce the outcome we are hoping for or expect, if we can say that we did our best as Don Miguel Ruiz says, “then we won’t judge ourselves.” Miguel Ruiz says that when we do our best we learn to accept ourselves, but we have to be aware and learn from our mistakes (like Shiva).
“Learning from your mistakes means you practice, look honestly at the results, and keep practicing. This increases your awareness,” Ruiz says.
So when we do our best, we can be more compassionate with ourselves and if there is an opportunity to step forward and make things right (make right of our wrong), then we can rise up to that challenge like a warrior… as Shiva did in the end.
Ruiz says that action is about living fully, expressing what we are. While inaction is the way that we deny life and we don’t express what we are, because we’re afraid to be alive and take the risk.
Managing the unexpected turn that life has taken over the past 6 months with the COVID-19 pandemic, has been a BIG task. I know others can relate, when I say that there have been a lot of tough decisions that I’ve had to make that I never thought I would have had to make. Furthermore, it’s extremely overwhelming and scary when you have to make such big decisions based on so much uncertainty. I’ve been using this simple, yet sometimes difficult to put into practice, agreement “always do your best” as a daily mantra. I wrote it on a small chalkboard that I pass by every day, as a reminder to help set a positive and compassionate tone for my day. I look at it as I walk out the door every time to remind myself that no matter what unexpected twist or turn life takes me on that day, I will do my best. I happened to take a gaze at it recently when I was struggling to make a difficult decision, and I noticed a sense of calm and relief come over me after I read the words to myself. I was putting so much pressure, stress… suffering on myself. It felt so good to be reminded of this agreement and to free myself from the attachment to an outcome I had no control over anyways. While I may not have all the answers, I still have the power to live fully by taking action and doing my best in everything I do and feel.
Let Vīrabhadrāsana 3 inspire you to charge forward and to take action this month. Follow the directions below to practice Warrior 3 on your own at-home.
Alignment
Standing leg is firm with a slight internal rotation of the thigh.
Standing leg hip is flexed so torso is parallel to the mat.
Lifted leg is firm with a slight internal rotation of the thigh.
Lifted leg foot is in dorsiflexion with toes pointing down.
Pelvis should be level to the mat
Navel center is drawing in, and rib cage is moving down toward pelvis to engage core and support lumbar spine.
Reach the center of the sternum forward to lengthen the thoracic spine.
The neck should be in alignment with the rest of the spine and the gaze straight down.
Upper arms are in line with the ears.
Repeat on second side.
Benefits
Strengthens feet, ankles, legs and hips
Strengthens the muscles in your back and shoulders
Tones the abdomen
Stretches your arms, legs, shoulders, neck, belly, groins and ankles.
Improves focus, balance, stability, and posture.
Trains you to stay present during difficult situations
Invigorating and energizing
Can calm the nervous system
Can reduce anxiety
Can improve digestion
Encourages good circulation and respiration.