Ashtavakrasana: Eight Angle Pose.

The story goes that this pose was named after the great sage AshtaVakra. While being on the womb, as the intellectual badass that he was, corrected his father, a prominent scholar on his inaccurate interpretation of scriptures. His father cursed him, he didn’t find constructive criticism very helpful. He was born crooked (vakra) in 8 (ashta) places.

Regardless of his physical deformities, Ashtavakra was such a force to be reckoned with that he even got King Janaka to bow down to him and seek his spiritual guidance.

This pose reminds me of the Yoga Sutras 1.2 Yoga citta vritti nirodha- let yoga, through the body, be the tool to control the fluctuations of the mind. Your physical body is just a vessel for the divine.