There’s a pose I didn’t teach for five whole years.
Not because it was advanced. Not because it was risky. Just because I didn’t like it.
Firelog pose—also known as Agnistambhasana or double pigeon—was my nemesis. Every time I practised it, I’d feel tight, stuck, awkward. So I quietly left it out of my teaching, class after class, year after year. And because no one asked for it, I never questioned it too much.
But recently, I realised: I’d never actually given the pose a fair chance. I was avoiding it without really listening to what it had to teach me. Which made me wonder—what else do I do that with? On the mat, and off it?
This past month, I created a four-week yoga series built around exactly that: exploring our relationship with the poses we don’t like—not just the physically demanding ones, but the ones that stir something deeper. The ones that make us huff, fidget, roll our eyes. The ones we’d rather skip.
I themed the series around Firelog—yes, the very pose I’d avoided for years. I taught it every single week. And I invited students to get curious. What happens in the body, breath, and mind when a pose feels ‘not your favourite’? Do you brace, resist, distract yourself? Or lean in and listen?
Week by week, we uncovered different layers:
- That initial flicker of resistance and how it shows up.
- The difference between a healthy challenge and a red flag—and how to hear the body’s quiet messages.
- The natural rhythms of energy and effort (because nothing blooms all year).
- And finally, the quiet courage it takes to stay with something you usually avoid—and meet it with presence.
And Firelog? I still don’t love it. But teaching it—and doing it—week after week changed my relationship with it. I’ve softened. I understand it more. It’s become less of an obstacle and more of a conversation.
That’s what yoga does. It gives us space to meet ourselves honestly, again and again. Not to force anything, but to stay curious about what we resist—and why.
Because often, the thing we’re avoiding isn’t the real issue. It’s the story we’ve been telling ourselves about it.
How to get into it?
Place one shin parallel to the floor and stack the other leg directly on top, keeping knees and ankles aligned. Sit tall—or gently fold forward to deepen the stretch, keeping the spine long.
Want to join me for my next yoga series in Rugby?
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