Yoga With Pamela McDowell

What have socks got to do with yoga, aside from keeping your feet warm?

This morning I realized I was wearing something very interesting.

After years of trusty service, a pair of wool-blend socks are wearing through in bottom.

And now that winter weather has arrived, it’s getting harder to ignore the thin spots (especially while teaching on an unheated floor in stocking feet).

This may be the first time I ever got to observe this particular wear pattern… my other socks usually loose their shape or break down in some other way before a hole develops in the bottom.

And the holes weren’t what I expected..

Since these socks (like most normal socks) don’t have a specific right or left foot, both socks would have been worn about the same number of times on each foot.

So the pattern of thinning should be more or less symmetric on each sock, as it collects wear from both feet over time.

That was not the case for these socks. The wear pattern is not symmetric. It looks as though each sock has been worn on only one foot.

Perhaps that’s true, but not likely. I’m just not that organized.

Instead, these socks seem to be revealing some asymmetry in my movement patterns, weight distribution, and the shape of my feet.

And sure enough, when I paid careful attention to my walking, I started to notice how I may have worn lopsided holes in my socks.

It turns out that I put a little extra weight on the right sides of my feet.

Does this mean I have something to fix? Not necessarily.

Observing… seeing what is there objectively as possible is one of the practices of yoga.

These socks give me one more way to observe my behavior in a pretty objective way… Who’s gonna argue with a pair of socks?

It even pays to be more observant:
The Yoga of a Parking Ticket

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Tags: Yoga Philosophy, Yoga Practice Tips, Yoga Techniques //