‘Yoga has taught me to embrace both the yin and yang, the right and left, and the male and female that is within me.’
One reason I started yoga was to find balance in my life. I was upside down, and I had little control over my time. When I found a moment for myself, I often squandered it. I had no idea how much balance was a part of yoga, but I soon realized that the process of rebalancing would provide great benefit on and off the mat.
Balance plays a role in most postures. We work on one side of the body and then switch. It doesn’t take long to discover how different one side is to the other. The key is to understand and recognize where you are and that each day it will be different.
Rebalancing is about strengthening the weaker side and learning how not to favor the stronger. This winter, with all the snow we had in Connecticut, I was often out in the driveway shoveling. I’m right-handed and everything I did favored, or, rather, stressed out, my right side.
I stepped forward with my right foot. My right shoulder and the right side of my back bore the brunt of the lift upward; I tossed to the right, too. By alternating footwork, hand position, and toss, I had more stamina and fewer aches and pains.
Another important yoga lesson I applied was breath work. By inhaling for the shovel, exhaling for the toss, I created a rhythm and focus to my movement for much greater efficiency.
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Balance isn’t just a physical concept. It’s emotional. It’s right- and left-brain. It’s the male and female aspects of our humanity. There isn’t a better or worse when it comes to these things. It’s about finding that balance, recognizing tendencies, and finding ways to leverage all aspects of ourselves to maximize potential.
I found, for example, alternate-nostril breathing to be an excellent way to rebalance my left and right brain. As a musician who hosts songwriter nights, this came in handy. There’s a lot of right brain activity prior to the show—organizing and coordinating—but once that’s complete, I must refocus for the performance.
Alternate nostril breathing rebalances brainwaves. Tossing an apple from one hand to the other does the trick too. The key is to activate both sides of your brain to rebalance.
In Chinese medicine, the yin and yang are about energy and finding the right balance for a healthy existence. Yin yoga is a passive posture practice. Yin is associated with words like “cold,” “water,” “moon” and “femininity.”
Although you don’t hear many people refer to active postures as part of a yang practice, the yang in Chinese medicine is described as hard, hot, dry and masculine. Yang postures are also active and fit these descriptors. A flow-practice is an example of yang postures.
Neither practice is better or worse, right or wrong. It’s about striking a balance for that healthy existence.
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As a fiction writer, the ability to tap into my female side is important for creating convincing characters, dialogue, and setting. If I draw strictly from my male side, I’ll fail to get underneath the leaves where the real grit lies.
According to the book industry, men read mostly men, women mostly women*. I noticed that I fit this profile and started to consciously read more women, and I believe this has helped build depth to my writing.
Yoga has taught me to embrace both the yin and yang, the right and left, and the male and female that is within me. This has resulted in marked improvements in both body and mind. And it’s made getting through this snow-bound winter a helluva lot easier.
—Photo evanosherow/Flickr
Beautiful article, and I agree with Kitti: the sexualization of the topics is entirely appropriate. Gender is a reality, patriarchy is a reality, but so is the fact of masculine intelligence, for godsake…
Especially as, in our culture, yoga is predominately a ‘chick thing’.
The hope is for balance, for self growth, for deeper awareness. Personally. Culturally. And in the interconnected web. This article is a brave step into that balance.
As a yoga practicer and a seeker of balance myself, I applaud your well written article. We all need to find the yin and yang of our own individual selves in order to feel that balance that we each are looking for. Whether it be through yoga or some other form of mental or physical exercise, I think that time taken to clear ones mind can only add to a balanced life.
Robert, thank you for an interesting discussion of balance! I do want to point out one thing that may be an error: organization is a left-brain exercise, whereas music performance is primarily right-brain (unless you are a percussionist.)
Your article encourages me to dust off my yoga videos. 🙂
I think that this labeling of certain attributes as “feminine” and some as “masculine” is borne of patriarchy, no?
In other words, tantra and other Eastern religions come from the same place of male resource control, agency and selfishness (some would call this narcissism), female overburdening with childcare, the emotional life of the family and overdependence on relationships (some would call this co-dependence).
So perhaps to really achieve balance you need to stop labeling certain human being qualities we all need as either “masculine” or “feminine”?
The plight of females that you describe in Eastern religions, sounds very much like the plight of males under your religion: feminist anti-male hatred. Men are: 80% of suicide victims 95% of parents deprived of contact with their children 90% of murder victims 85% of assault victims 75% of sheltered homeless 85% of un-sheltered homeless 95% of prison inmates 95% of work related deaths 80% of children forced to take Ritalin in order to attend school And so on. Basically, if it is an awful thing, it happens more to men than women. Could you explain again how men have… Read more »
I liked the fact that the author states that these sides are equal and of equal importance. The point of this blog is a positive study of masculinity, so I find the sexualized terminology to be appropriate in this article.
I find it is better to focus on the positive points in gender and sexuality. As long as these attributes are being used and discussed in a positive way, then the classification by gender should not cause harm.
That’s my theory, anyway.
Sorry but I need to disagree. I think that sexualized terminology is part of the problem; this is the reason many boys and girls grow up in Balkanized roles where they have to learn the other side as adults. And “separate but equal” is just as bad for gender/sex equality as it is for racial equality. I think that preoccupation with being “positive” can be a defense to actually getting things fixed. And it’s a particular problem when women don’t own their full emotional range into the so-called “masculine” – anger, aggression, wanting to be dominant, having psychological barriers to… Read more »
“… Yoga has taught me to embrace both the yin and yang, the right and left, and the male and female that is within me…” If this were true, it would be wonderful. However, we live in a society where maleness is under constant attack, where masculinity itself is regarded as criminal, and where men an boys are neglected, vilified, humiliated, and dispossessed by their own government. In such a world, yoga becomes just another weapon of collective anti-male hatred. Are you “finding the feminine” inside yourself, or are you “destroying the masculine” inside yourself? The pervasive feminist anti-male hatred… Read more »
Love it. Agree. Balancing the Muscular (pull in) and the Organic (expand out) – such easy parallels to Yin / Yang, Masculine / Feminine. The gift of balance is powerful. I also love KULA (community). For me having the Kula to learn from and grow with, in deep connection – is a gift every single day. And what I notice is that there aren’t a lot of men in my yoga kula (Yoga Sactuary, Northampton MA!). So I have my men’s community through the ManKind Project, where I get to practice my yoga in other ways … often with men… Read more »
PS – gorgeous pose. some day.