Day 14 – keeping this format for the people following my status updates on Facebook, hot and sweaty in the shala today,tremendous hip-opening help by one of thassistants in Baddha Konasana, my very LEAST favourite pose in Primary and then the same guy helped in Backbending and offered into why I’m hyperventilating in standing up from drop backs, he said “don’t hold your breath, inhale as you come back up, also there is a little tightness in your hips that challenges the grounding through the legs, you really want to feel your legs supporting you as you come up, I know how you feel, sometimes you just wantit over with” 🙂 I said “that and I’m favouring my right shoulder, which twinges a bit as I deepen the backbend and walk in towards my feet” he was like “ah” and he watched me do two on my own, they were better, and told me not to rush, and to feel my feet (tiny as they are, right? DWL) and it was good! Then chanting and then we went to Lahksmipuram for lunch, so yummy, but what bugged me a bit was a guy who tagged along with us, and then refused to eat, saying he had no money (at that point I was like “dude, we all came in a rickshaw, did you think that was free?) and then refusing even after we offered to cover his meal.  Maybe he wanted the company?  I dunno.  I wish he’d spoken up, though, that was the principle that niggled at me.  Was it male pride? Till I grow a pair of my own, I’ll probably never know. Every day of Primary Series feels good, except when I push my shoulder too hard, I’m practising restraint too – and I’ll remember to BREATHE in drop backs, after all, the whole point is the breath, to listen to it and find the peace it shows you. Each asana is a teacher and Baddha Konasana and drop backs are teaching my key lessons about myself, I’m so grateful I’m aware enough to listen

On the eve of Yoga Month

Here’s the truth, people…I haven’t done a full practice in AGES (like 3 weeks), just trying to heal my left knee, which I managed to torque somehow, overdoing something when my nutty (read “schizophrenic”) left hip wasn’t ready. The result?? SEARING pain when I bent my knee, that means sitting, standing, walking all were hurting…let ALONE lotus (lotus??? whatever is that?). My body cried “Stop” while my mind argued “you can do this, forget the pain, you KNOW the right techniques now”….guess what won? Guess what ALWAYS does and will?

They say that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again, whilst expecting a different result or rather…let’s spin that on its ear….maybe TRUE intelligence means applying the techniques that you KNOW in the safest way possible to your body AS IT IS…not AS YOU IMAGINE IT or IN A PERFECT WORLD…just as it is. Prosaic? Maybe. True? Absolutely.

So I listened, I rested my body when it asked for it, I took the yoga inside and remembered what my teacher Greg Nardi said to me when I was at a particularly low point during an Ashtanga intensive I did (remind me to share more about that)…”Remember, Shakira”, he said, patience in his voice like he’d NEVER said it before “it’s a breathing practice”. And somehow it stuck, I got it, I slowed down and honoured what was happening and why and what I needed to change.

All of this I recall now as we head in to September, which is Yoga Month!!! Yay! Even as I challenge myself physically for EVERY ONE of the next 30 days (yes, EVERY DAY!), I’ll keep the thought “BREATHE” first and foremost in my mind, and for me it’s much bigger than words like “pranayama”, “Ujjayi” and “mula bandha” (don’t get me wrong, they’re important)…it means “Just breathe, no matter what, be still IN your breath, everything else will come”

“Do your practice”, Pattabhi Jois said, “and all is coming…” and you know what? I think I’m beginning to really see what Guruji meant

See you on the mat tomorrow!

love
SWWW