…First, Some Background

This year marks the 95th year for the Academy Awards, the Oscars. And while I haven’t seen a single film nominated this year and won’t watch it live since I don’t have a TV, it’s still fun to talk about it and follow the awards on social media – and find a good excuse for this yoga-related post about the Oscars.

When I think about yoga and the movies, there’s one scene that sticks out and it’s from the 2018 film Roma, which you can find on Netflix. It was directed by Alfonso Cuarón and won three Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film.

The movie is shot in black and white, and follows a family in 1970s Mexico City. The story revolves around Cleo, a domestic worker for the family, against the backdrop of personal and political turmoil.

Tree Pose in “Roma”

I saw the movie once, and can’t recall where exactly this scene is in the film. But at one point, there’s a group of mostly men facing a man who is guiding everyone in some exercises and then begins demonstrating Tree Pose. It’s interesting because it’s a yoga scene and it’s a man teaching a crowd of mostly men through a relatively well-known balance pose. At this point in the scene, everyone is thinking ‘no big deal, I can do this.’

But then the man in front tells everyone to close their eyes, and for a moment there’s a shot where a few people are thinking, ‘sure, easy enough.’

Except, it’s not. Tree with your eyes closed is hard, even for seasoned yogis like me. I recall seeing a few men stumble with their balance. But as this still shot from the film seems to indicate, the women – who were standing behind the group of men – are just killing it in terms of standing on one leg and maintaining their balance.

Tree is part of the Hot 26 series, and I’ll write more about this pose in the near future. In the meantime, I encourage you to try the pose eyes open or closed.

Or better yet, try it at least once on each leg during a couple of the speeches.

Cheers,

Shuva