• View fandomyoga’s profile on Facebook
  • View fandomyoga’s profile on Twitter
  • View fandomyoga’s profile on Instagram
  • View karenofnine/fandom-yoga’s profile on Pinterest
  • View fandomyoga’s profile on Tumblr
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Fandom Yoga

Namaste, Live Long & Prosper and May the Force be With You

  • Home
  • Poses
  • Flows
  • Mantras
  • Intentions
  • Concepts
  • Playlist
  • Fandoms
  • Contact

You Shouldn’t Mute the Beat: Locust Pose

April 25, 2018 by Fandom Yoga Leave a Comment

Do you ever feel like you are too much?

Too big, too messy, too emotional, too loud, too enthusiastic? Too boisterous? Just too much?

I certainly do. Sometimes it feels like I just take up too much space, and the world would prefer that I fold inwards as small and as crumpled as possible.

In times like that, however, we would all do well to remember Tracy Turnblad.

In the much beloved musical Hairspray, Tracy is a heavy set girl with dreams of dancing. She goes to audition for a dance show but is told by the evil woman in charge that she is “just too much.” It’s done with a patronizing flick of the finger towards her girth.

Fortunately for Tracy and for the audience, her joie de vivre is not crumpled. She dances even bigger and more scandalously, and manages to make strides in attacking all kinds of prejudice, including racism.

Cheers always erupt when her also-big mom comes out on stage and sings “you can’t stop my happiness ‘cause I like the way I am, and I just can’t stop my knife and fork when I see a Christmas ham. So if you don’t like the way I look well I just don’t give a damn…” The song it comes from is “You can’t stop the beat,” a hyper-peppy ode to open-minded progress.

You may never find a better champion for the loud, proud, and deeply weird than John Waters, who directed the movie on which the musical is based. The controversial iconoclast has made a career of celebrating those that trumpet the taboo. When I went to a camp last year with Waters as the guest of honor, that was certainly true. The stranger the bent of the camp-goer, the better, and the costumes alone were enough to give the whole weekend an NC17 rating.

It wasn’t always my cup of tea, exactly, but as even the most proper of the attendees could attest, the world’s a lot more fun when people let their freak flags fly.

The camp was also a good reminder that it isn’t the whole world that wants to diminish you. Sure, maybe it’s some people, who are dismissed by one wonderful character in the show as a “a whole lot of ugly coming at you from a never-ending parade of stupid.” But there will always be people who will be a Tracy for you – willing to cover the flab with sequins and just own it, people who realize you are valuable when you are you, showing your muchness.

Those people will not define you by the space you take up, they will define you by the light that shines in the space.

You can decide for yourself if you want to lose pounds or be quieter or refine who you are.  But you are not your fat or your noise or your mess. You shine above and beyond all that ephemera. And if someone can’t see that light, then maybe you need to dance on a different stage – in any case, don’t stop or muffle the beat.

To remember all that, I get into Locust pose. You lie on your stomach and lift up your arms and legs. In so doing, you balance on just one area of your body that usually isn’t involved in that sort of role. It feels neat in that it is strange but it also reminds you that you have a powerful core that that is you, and you can rely on it – a core without boundaries, a core free of others’ judgement.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Filed Under: blog post, pose Tagged With: musicals

Previous Post: « Bot Buddies of Fandom Flow!
Next Post: The Finite’s Guide to Coping with the Infinite, Part 1: Understanding It All (in Sphinx Pose) »

Reader Interactions

Thoughts...?!Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Where to start?

Wondering what this has to do with yoga? Yoga means “to join” – and here I join together ideas from different fandoms of many kinds, including, of course, yoga!

Check out where yoga can take you. Or how you could start yoga with a body that might betray your love of sitting, reading, and watching? Try why yoga is great for geeks or the best benefits of yoga that aren’t exercise. How about where to start? Read this guide to the basic yoga poses for beginners.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Recent Posts

  • Backwards and in heels
  • Staring into the Vantablack Bagel
  • This way madness lies?
  • Haunted atoms go to space
  • Having a sad like a straw in the head

Recent Comments

  • Buy African espresso on Backwards and in heels
  • sandscasino.co.kr on Backwards and in heels
  • ESL Lesson Plans on Backwards and in heels
  • native ad networks on Backwards and in heels
  • Staring into the Vantablack Bagel on Haunted atoms go to space

Copyright © 2025 · Foodie Pro & The Genesis Framework

 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d