I am sure, that even though you haven’t heard the sanskrit pose name of Virabhadrasana, the word warrior will transport you to these very iconic images of  standing poses the warrior poses has 3 main variation: Warrior one, where you are facing front and the arms are stretched up, the warrior 2 where your chest is facing to the side, the hip is opened and your arms extended outsides. And warrior 3 were you balance in one leg facing front along with your arms and the other leg extended back opposite your arms. . So for the ones who still haven’t heard  the myth behind, here it goes (Picture the poses while you read the story):

Shiva  had a passionate love with Sati ( a reincarnation of shakti). But Sati’s father, Daksha didn’t like at all her daughters choice of companion. It would not be unusual for a father to judge his daughter's boyfriend when he sees him with dreadlocks that make him look scruffy and with way too much free time invested in meditating isolated from everything. Dakshi, to prove Sati his opposition and rejection towards Shiva, threw a Party where Sati was invited but Shiva wasn’t. Sati felt a great sadness to see her father still not accepting his beloved one and appeared in the party in deep sorrow  watched by everyone how she cried with a broken heart. Sati’s sadness and emotion was so strong that she turned into flames and self-immolated turning into ashes infant of her father. 

Shiva who was meditating at the top of mount Kailash felt something was wrong. When he received the news, almost immediately, of what had happened to Sati, Shiva became so furious and full of anger that threw one of his dreadlocks to the ground. This piece of him turned into Virabhadra who emerged from the earth at Daksha’s party. The warrior Virabhadra emerged with his sword above his head (like in warrior one), he prepared to kill Daksha opening his arms to the sides (warrior two) and cut off his head; finally, he stood in one leg to pick up the head with the sword (in warrior three) and place it on a stake. [There is another version where the warrior two represents the body posture that prepares for the action, and warrior three is the culminating moment of killing].

Up to here, was the part of the story I knew for many years, finding but it was until very early ago I completed the message of the story.. so story continues when Sati immediately embodied a new physical body and scolded Shiva for killing her father, Shiva feeling remorse took the head of a goat and placed it in Daksha’s body. Sati was pleased, Daksha felt grateful and made another party to honor Sati and Shiva. 

The story of Virabhadrasana is a remarkable lesson of how our nature is not only happiness and bliss, we also feel anger and sadness and we act sometimes reacting to this emotions as well. Because things usually don’t go our way.  What is important is to always be aware of our thoughts, emotions and actions, even though we have already acted and made a mistake. There is always a chance to amend and learn from it. That for me is the process of evolving and becoming a better self.