Yoga at Dawn

It didn't look this good.  For one it was in my yard not an open expanse so, although I assume it was somewhere near dawn, I couldn't actually see any sun peeping over the horizon.  Just inky black sky, white fluorescent light and the odd motorbike taxi hurtling down my Soi.  Also it wasn't some svelte yogini on the mat, it was me in crumpled fisherman's pants and yesterday's shirt.

Dom is now doing his advanced practitioner course and as daily homework he has to do five rounds of sun salutation A, some pranayama, and meditate for a bit.  I offered to join him so at 5.30 I dragged my mat into the yard and cranked out some gladness. Man, my salutations are rusty.  I have mainly being doing yin yoga which is more stillness than movement for some reason sun salutations have become an endangered species in my regular class.  It was good to do them though, just five had me sweaty.

I skipped the pranayama (as vipassana includes breathing I didn't see the need to separate it from the meditation stage - and after all I am just hanging out, free as a bird to unfollow instructions) and sat in hero pose to meditate.  My landlady was clattering around next door and taxis were zipping by so I didn't try too hard.  I just sat and let calm wash over me, trying to empty my mind only to watch it being drawn back to the waking day.

Then, still slightly sweaty and with dusty feet, I curled back into bed while Dom showered and got ready for work. I closed my eyes and felt myself hum with a pleasant vibration.  I felt more connected and my usual panicky sense of being adrift was gone.  I felt simple, centered and happy.  I felt like I might do it again tomorrow.

Escape and stories

Interesting how this blog was working better as a private journal.  As soon as I went public (i.e. told Dom) I started 'writing for' instead of 'writing about' and I lost the momentum of introspection.  But yesterday I was lying on my yoga mat listening to stories. Don't worry, I was still in the Floment, but stories were rising... and I listened and let them go like a good yogini.  Anyway, I realised I still needed this space. I am so full of stories and they clutter me up.  Yoga is physically, mentally and emotionally easy for some and hard for others.

Hard for me.  But good for me too - helps me sift through the stories and let them go.  But ultimately when you struggle with yoga you need more than one mat.

This is just another mat.

Keep calm and...

I have been a bit neglectful of my blog and although I would like to say I have been too busy to post that is simply not true.  I have been busy, but not too busy.  I can't even claim to have writer's block - this time last week I had a fantastic idea for a post, based on a meditation of yoga as story. Now the key idea eludes me, and I hope it will come back but if not, oh well - that is simply the price I have to for letting it slip away in the first place.

Today I found myself fighting tears on my yoga mat, during forward bends of all poses.  I had a lot of tightness in my lower back and my left hip was a little sore, but my tears came from nowhere, connected to some old inner sadness.  Dom encouraged me to speak to Cerissa afterwards and she said it was perfectly natural and not simply some emo chick thing as I feared (I hate the thought that I am weak).

I think my lack of posting is related.  I am avoiding something, but I am also wary about making a big deal out of it.  It seems with yoga given time and space these ills heal themselves - without specific mental effort or therapy.  I don't know, I really don't.  But I will yoga through it and try my best to post through it. Maybe we will all learn something new.

yoga and poetry

Today after class I had an interesting conversation about poetry with my yoga teacher, Jib.  She mentioned that after showing Dom one of her poems he had told her that her approach to poetry resembled mine in that it was consciously crafted with attention paid to rhythm and rhyme.  She said she noticed my practice showed similar tendencies (in fact it was noticing this that prompted her to make the connection that I am Dom's wife as she is probably the only teacher at yoga elements who hasn't seen us together).

I restrain myself. I strive for accuracy of alignment at the expense of pushing myself deeper.  This sounds like a polite way of saying I am lazy, but I understand what she means.  Some people work very hard to go deep into poses before they are flexible enough to handle them and in so doing they compromise their posture.  We all do it sometimes - out of a hungry desire to improve quickly - but sometimes I know when to hold back and indeed to enjoy holding back.  Jib was gracefully letting me know she noticed and (as a self-confessed precision junkie) appreciated my restraint and respect for the details.

I will examine at how I became this way in another post.  But for now I want to consider poetry and yoga.  Reflection on Jib's parallel between yoga and poetry led me to think more about how I write poetry.  The crafting for me is more than just matching rhymes and aligning rhythm, I also try and get deep meaning into a small number of words.  This is also, I think, the essence of yoga.

Consider the title of this blog.  I named it "in balasana" rather self-deprecatingly because that is how I spent so much of my first few yoga classes, resting... in child's pose. But it is also a play on "in balance" and "imbalance" because when I cam back to yoga a mere two months ago I did so with some very deep imbalances, emotional and physical, which I am slowly and carefully, through my practice, bringing into balance.

In balasana, imbalance, in balance; three meanings, all very significant, layered deeply over each other.

This is poetry is yoga.  This yoga, poetry.

Mau

“Yoga is not a recipe to follow but a set of tools for one's own inquiry and individual conclusions”

Mauricio Pena

I really don't know enough about yoga to start critiquing teachers (and yet I know enough about yoga to resist critiquing teachers) but I just wanted to make a post about Mau before his classes fade a little from my memory.  Mau was a guest teacher at Elements through the month of July while Adrian and Shane went off and did cool things in foreign lands.  He had a slightly different style from many of the regular Elements teachers, some new ideas (often involving straps) and he led his classes with a warm, self-effacing manner that seemed quite precious as if it flowed from an abundant heart chakra.

I only had about three classes with him and he had dinner with Dom and I twice. Socially he was just the same, thoughtful and a bit shy, quick to laugh.  The least ego-centric yoga person I have met so far I think.  I also liked him because he was pleased to see me and didn't ask (if I was alone) where Dom was.   Dom is very out-going and charismatic, and in our small yoga society (the people we sip mint tea with) I must sometimes seem like Dom's wife rather than a person of my own.

Anyway, I will miss Mau and hope he comes back to Yoga Elements soon.

wellness

Today my Ayurvedic doctor, Sangeeta Sirinthipaporn, dusted my oily feet with something resembling allspice and declared me healed.


Well not exactly 'healed' per se, but completely relaxed (solar plexus and adrenals) unblocked (bladder meridian) and cleared in a energy flow sense and able to conduct the remaining physical healing on my own.  I felt a bit wobbly and emotional as I said goodbye and wanted to give her a hug but clung stoically to my English stiff upper whatsit.  Which is ironically what got me into trouble in the first place, the tendency to go "no really I am fine" and swallow whatever anguish, anxiety or other unpleasant emotion beginning with A that I deem inappropriate for public consumption.


So I said 'thank you and maybe see you again', and she said 'no probably not because you are fixed you see', and I said 'well I might pop back anyway, cos you know... it's kinda nice having someone put fragrant oil in your hair' and she gracefully peeled my fingers away from her door frame, ushered me into the street and waved cheerfully through the wrought iron gate.


Sangeeta also teaches Ayurveda and I would quite like to study with her, but I do need to get well myself before I start taking on the burden of others' health.  And I don't just mean I need my leg to stop hurting but also the other stuff the anxiety and self-esteem things. 


But that is what I am doing yoga for right? 

  http://www.sangeetas.com/

on having a day off

I had a day off yoga today, which kind of blew my intention to do a full week (ish Thursday thru Tuesday anyway)  but I learned some things anyway so it is all good.

First I learned that I worry over much about what Dom will think of me.  From the moment I decided not to go to my class (after the third trip to the toilet) to the moment I saw Dom (about two hours later) I worried that he would be disappointed that I had decided not to go to class. I spent that two hours continuously rolling his potential disappointment around in my head and making half-hearted attempts to counteract it from telling myself we would get to spend more time together and that would make him happy, to thinking how I could go shopping on my own to give him that hour and a half of 'alone time' that my skiving out of yoga class would deprive him off if it didn't (make him happy for those of you who can't follow a long sentence).

In the end? He walked out of his class and smiled and said "Decided not to do yoga today? That's fine love" and gave me kiss. 

Realising that all my worries have been more weirdness of my own internal paradigm I examined them.  Basically it went something like: poor Yoga-God Dom stuck with lazy frumpy wife who can't even squeeze her fat lumpy ass into her lycra and do yoga three consecutive days without falling face down into a tub of full fat ice-cream and faking stomach-ache in order to sit on the couch for an extra 15 minutes in the morning. For the record, my stomach issues were genuine and I haven't had ice-cream in ages - but sometimes my self-loathing gets creative. 

There is a lot there but basically my anxiety boils down to a feeling that I am Unworthy and yet oddly married to a man who is Uber-worthy and I am wildly imaginative when worrying what other people think. In fact not only do I do not need evidence that they are having negative thoughts about me I don't even need actual people; I can dedicate days to worrying about what hypothetical people are hypothetically thinking about me. Months.

Dom hates it when I am self-critical so I am now worrying that he will read this post and be disappointed.  I will let it be and trust that he will see the growth, the improved  self-awareness, and the honesty (beneath the gnawing self-hating anxiety) and be hopeful for me.

Or maybe I should stop worrying what he thinks.