Day 5 – Simon and Garfunkel were right

Today I did Sun Salutations, all the Standing Postures all the way to Marichyasana A before my left knee requested a reprieve. Ardha Baddha Padmottanasana – (that’s ‘Half Lotus Standing Forward Bend’ for the uninitiated) on the left is still not ready to be safely manifested in this body of mine so I did Tree Pose and counted out the breath

And guess what, people? Something else changed in my practice. Sometimes that happens, you can go days, weeks, even months and you feel like “why am I even DOING this? I don’t FEEL any different, nor more enlightened than last Tuesday” and then all of a sudden, you’re seeing all these new things coming at you….I intentionally went slower in each asana, particularly the left side, to assess what was happening and how it impacted my hip and knee – I actually did Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimatanasana (the seated cousin of the posture I described above) TWICE, and by slowing down, was able to adjust the alignment just a little bit, and suddenly I felt the pose in my hip again (where it belongs, I might add) and significantly less in my knee…brilliant!

Another thing, I could jump through more smoothly and picking up to jump back, I could swing back and place my toe behind me the way my teacher taught me (if you’re wondering what that looks like, look for ‘Kino Macgregor jumping back from Padmasana’ on Youtube, the woman is simply all kinds of wonderful and amazing), suddenly the ‘impossible’ things that I had placed aside to ‘learn in my own time’ were easier to imagine in my body than ever before, and all because I slowed down.

Anyone who knows me knows that I move fast, I walk fast (well, with 44″ inches from hip to toe, I can’t help it 😉 , talk fast, type fast and I practise fast. I could finish Full Primary plus finishing AND Savasana in just under 90 minutes….I don’t say this to boast or vaunt myself, but practising quickly was both the result of a shorter breath (asthma-related) and the need to be done early in the mornings before work…even adding postures from Second Series and doing more back-bends took me to 1hr50 TOPS….so this practice was different, I made each moment stretch out, I paused, contemplated and noticed my breath in a new way….Amazing, all the fundamental, subtle little things that pop into your consciousness when you take your time…”Slow down, you move too fast, you got to make the moment last…” that’s what Simon and Garfunkel said, right?

There is a tendency in our world nowadays to move at lightning-speed, to get things done to get to the next ‘thing to do’…but listen, the yoga practice offers us an alternative, it says “Hey, slow down, and study yourself for a moment, what are you looking for?”

When you have an injury or a perhaps a setback in life, maybe there’s an opportunity to re-assess yourself, to see inside, to what’s real…and here’s the thing, the thesis of the evening, the point (maybe) to my meandering scribble of thoughts, the REAL is the breath, your soul, the animus inside you; the body is but a shell, a vehicle, a laboratory, it’s the part that IS ephemeral…we are more than the sum of our knees, hips, shoulders and lower backs. But we need the vehicle to have this life…like one of my teachers, Sharon says, we are “spiritual beings having a human experience”. So treat your body well, and listen to it.

When I got to Marichyasana A today and was able to ground myself through BOTH hips, I could FEEL the posture in a different way….it was deep, it was different and I know why…and I was “feeeelin’ groooovy”

more tomorrow!

SWWW