Thursday 25th March
My first Mysore class for a week, although I did my own practice on Tuesday. There were only four others in the class this morning so we all got extra attention and adjustments. I didn’t really want either, just to work delicately and gently. Since overdoing the backbends last week, my body’s felt like glass about to shatter. I can only get half way into most poses and I’ve had to humbly accept this and work to a lower threshold, physically and mentally.
A wave of panic comes over my body at the thought of dropbacks. The warning siren. Whatever it was I did last week has deeply affected my physical structure: my body’s hovering outside the cosmic recovery ward, desperately needing to recuperate from it's ordeal. These hips are not the hips I’m used to; unfamiliar and achey sensations that are indescribable.
Convincing myself to go to class this morning was tough. Being the first one to arrive at the shala, it would have been a good opportunity to talk to Simi about it. But I didn’t. I just got on the mat and did the best I could do under the circumstances. Unsurprisingly, my hamstring injury and continual sciatic nerve pain prevented any ease in the practice.
The poses that make up the Ashtanga sequence cover every part of the body so thoroughly that if you have a weakness or injury anywhere in your body, one of the poses will really set off the alarm bells. With this hamstring injury, its Janu Sirsasana B – a forward tilt of the pelvis on one side is now restricted to zero degrees. Janu A is not so bad, and Janu C is a breeze. I didn’t do any 2nd series poses or dropbacks this morning and even missed out a couple of first series poses. Simi may have noticed but she didn’t mention it or query me.
In Parivritta Parsvakonasana, a pose I’ve been enjoying for the last few months (cos I can finally do it with some kind of integrity), my hips felt so weak that they couldn’t hold the forward weight of my torso. Simi adjusted me deeper into the twist but I collapsed out of it. It’s as if the energy channels have been severed in the hip region, quite possibly form overextending in those dropbacks last week. The mind goes there and sends all the right messages, but there’s just no response. Hip lights are out…nobody’s home…come back another time.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Tuesday 23rd March 2004
A very gentle self practice this morning, so gentle that I missed out all my challenging poses. I almost feel like I shouldn’t be doing any Ashtanga with my body in its current condition. Last weekend I had an EXTREME reaction – an aching through my joints, bones and nerves that is only just beginning to ease off. At time I almost felt nauseous from the deep aches. It’s not like anything I’ve ever felt before. I can only put it down to one of two causes…either:
1) just too much yoga: classes, practice and teaching, on top of full time work OR
2) the backbends I did in the three classes last week; enthusiastically dropping back and coming up, challenging handstand dropbacks, plus work into Vrchikasana in Darren’s Iyengar class (balancing in Pincha Mayurasana close to the wall first, then bending the knees and walking feet down the wall to blocks on the floor).
It may well be the backbends as it seems to be affecting my hip joints, front groins and lower back, but the aching branches out to the rest of my body through my nervous system. Yikes, I can only go half way into most poses at the moment and my body is continuously uncomfortable – nerve pains exploding like electric shocks through my back, hips and legs. Something’s definitely not right here so I’m backing off from practice a little. This is definitely not an injury to practice through.
In lovely contrast to this, my mind and my emotions are stable, balanced and at ease. Despite the physical pain, I’m joyously happy. Weird, but true. Life is beautiful.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Wednesday 17th March 2004
The way our lives are constantly changing and evolving is more perfect that we realize. My life seems to run so smoothly, as if each change to my outer circumstances is another piece of a jigsaw puzzle being slotted into place. Perhaps this is a result of many years of Buddhist training; it sort of feels like I’ve paid back all my karma and I’ve now learned how to live in this world skillfully in a way that doesn’t create any negative karma. Finally free.
When we dedicate our life wholeheartedly to a higher purpose, our thoughts become pure, our actions powerful. During the purification that occurs with genuine spiritual endeavor and practice, consequences of past actions rise up effortlessly so they can be released and dissolved. You become sensitive to this cleaning process and can observe it occurring. And when sticky situations arise in daily life, you can usually see the cause and how you’ve attracted the situation for your learning. Instead of reacting with a conditioned response, you observe it clearly and deal with it skillfully.
Deep reflection brings awareness. It’s like shining a light onto things that have been hidden in the dark for a long time; our subconscious habits and mental processes. Observing ourselves dispassionately, watching our lives unfold through the situations that are presented in our daily life, we begin to turn up this light of awareness; it shines brighter so we can clearly see the causes, effects and patterns that manifest from our thoughts . We begin to see our true selves, our true purpose, and the process that moves us towards the full expression of that.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Monday 15th March 2004
First day back at my new (old) job at the art school. The job is challenging but exciting. Visual arts attracts people from all walks of life, all looking for self expression, meaning, personal development. It’s a dynamic, rich and unstable environment, people on the edge…I love it.
My yoga and inner practices will have to bubble away in the background for a short while until the new changes and new schedules settle. I’ll still be teaching 5 classes a week on top of full time work so there’ll be very little time to spare for quiet reflection and meditation – what we need most when we are at our busiest.
Did my first real Ashtanga practice for a whole week (a monthly break we girls get to take). My joints felt a little glued up but I managed the dropbacks and stand ups quite easily. The following handstands (lifting up with feet and knees together) were quite weak – I could only manage three with Simi helping me balance as my body was tired out from the practice by that time, shoulders and arms were pretty shaky. Janu Sirsasana B was traumatic because of my right hamstring injury. And Supta Kurmasana, well I’ve made absolutely no progress in this pose for about six months despite being adjusted into it almost every time. I can clasp my hands easily and wriggle my feet almost together (hell I think they even touched a couple of times!), but crossing them behind the head??? I thought I’d be there by now. C’est la vie.
Plagued as I have been lately by niggling warning signs in my body, I’ve begun to question how I should approach this practice so that I can keep doing it. Funny how you develop a relationship with, and an attachment to your practice. You have to face all the issues that come up that threaten the relationship like injuries and life changes and not deny and ignore the warning signs. Then you have to take responsibility for whatever’s come up and develop a different approach so the relationship can continue and you can grow from it.
Staying with a regular Ashtanga practice when parts of my body are complaining about it can only be done if I listen to their complaints, carefully watch the symptoms, identify the causes, determine the most effective way to deal with them and gently work, perhaps in a different way, to nurture and strengthen the weakened or damaged areas back to health. Likewise in my relationship with my partner I am often being confronted with issues that make me question whether it is worthwhile staying with it and working through the problems. It can only be justified if there’s a wholehearted commitment to work the problems out and not give up when the going gets tough.
"There’s nothing so big that it can’t be run away from” -Oscar Wilde
____________________________________________________________________________________
Thursday 4th March 2004
Two Mysore practices at the shala this week unkindly reflected mind states of great polarity. Monday morning was strong, powerful and focused. My body was open and I managed to stand up from the dropbacks.
This morning I just had to drag myself through the two hour practice with a thickly glued up body that made most poses excruciating. I realized early on that I wouldn’t be able to practice strongly and accepted that today I’d just be going through the physical motions, trying to assume a superficial replication of the shape of each pose and trusting that even this would be of some benefit. Every micro adjustment I tried to make felt like a major surgical incision.
Simi adjusted me nicely in Marichyasana C. I usually love the adjustment teachers do in this pose where they sit in front of you, put a levering foot outside your bent knee and pull your arm around. But then Simi placed her hand tenderly on my face and guided it further around…such loving and healing hands are a teacher’s greatest gift.
I moved only half way into the poses this morning and that felt challenging enough. There’s a kind of sliding tolerancy scale that changes with each practice. Some days when the body is open and the mind receptive, the boiling point is high and I can work deeply, absorbed in the process with an intense focus and a desire to challenge my limitations and extend the boundaries of my practice. And then there are days like today, pitifully low tolerance level, glued up body, fragile mental state, where I feel the need to protect myself against the practice. I hold back, knowing that if I cross the tolerance threshold, I’ll shatter like glass.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Monday 1st March 2004
I’m noticing that the physical concerns of my practice are slowly being replaced with a growing sensitivity of how to generate and mobilize the power of prana more consistently. It comes and goes though depending on the state of my mind and body.
This morning’s practice was light and powerful and yielded many gifts. Those little niggly problems in my body like my injured hamstring and my weakening left shoulder sort of faded into the background as I tried to maintain my focus on mulabandha in each pose – it’s becoming more refined, less of a muscular pull and more an energetic lift that I generate from my metaphysical base. In Dog Pose, I feel mulabandha drawing energy all the way up from the balls of my feet which come alive as they are activated. On a good day the practice is moving into a whole new dimension now. On a bad day, well, you get to revisit all those lessons on acceptance and patience.
Drop back time came around this morning and I had absolutely no fears or hesitation for a change. The force was with me! I summonded the courage to attempt coming back up for the first time and to my amazement I did it, slightly overshooting and landing on my knees for the first one. I’d always envisaged my first attempts failing to even get up – the fear was always that I’d fall back down and land on my head. But Simi’s one simple instruction to think of lifting the hips rather than coming forward did it for me (“Imagine a gossamer thread pulling the hips upwards”) and I guess because my mind was so calm and clear this morning I could direct that intent into my body, process it and produce the correct action without any interfering static and confusion (as has been my Pasasana experience).
So I did 5 dropbacks and came up on every one – the last one controlled and perfect.
SHIFT HAPPENS
No doubt next time it will be different when I attempt it from a less focused mind state. I fully expect to land back on my head at some future point.
Sirsasana was a powerfully peaceful experience. Some days I can just fine tune it to a perfectly effortless balance, the spine so vertically aligned that gravity has no effect – I feel weightless, suspended in outer space. I’m really enjoying these Headstands lately.
After such a delicious practice I finally came to rest in Savasana, contented, fulfilled, with nothing more on this earth that I could possible want. A deep peace pervaded every cell of my body and my heart expanded with love and gratitude.
If only it was always like this…clear mind, strong body. What makes it like this? If I knew, could I maintain and control those conditions that contribute to feeling such internal velocity? Yesterday I was a write off – no energy, lethargic and sleepy for no discernable reason!
About Turn
Life’s about to change again. In 2 weeks I’ll be taking up a new position at the Art School where I worked for 8 years before leaving in February 2003. It’s a place I know and love, and work that I know and love. It’s a full time position and an all consuming one.
The perfectly balanced yoga life that I’d carefully crafted out for myself, working 3 days a week so I could slowly increase my yoga teaching commitments, is now about to come to an abrupt end.
I can’t yet envisage how it will impact on me – perhaps I don’t even want to think about it. There’ll be less time to practice, less space for internal reflection, and I’m a little worried that teaching may become more of a burden than a joy. Although the 7 classes a week that I was scheduled to teach from the end of March had me quite excited, I was also a little anxious that I was taking on too much too soon in my teaching career. It felt like a big commitment to an alternative life.
Now I’ll have to balance a challenging day job with part time yoga teaching (maybe 4 classes a week) along with all the other commitments to myself and others that I want to maintain.
____________________________________________________________________________________
My first Mysore class for a week, although I did my own practice on Tuesday. There were only four others in the class this morning so we all got extra attention and adjustments. I didn’t really want either, just to work delicately and gently. Since overdoing the backbends last week, my body’s felt like glass about to shatter. I can only get half way into most poses and I’ve had to humbly accept this and work to a lower threshold, physically and mentally.
A wave of panic comes over my body at the thought of dropbacks. The warning siren. Whatever it was I did last week has deeply affected my physical structure: my body’s hovering outside the cosmic recovery ward, desperately needing to recuperate from it's ordeal. These hips are not the hips I’m used to; unfamiliar and achey sensations that are indescribable.
Convincing myself to go to class this morning was tough. Being the first one to arrive at the shala, it would have been a good opportunity to talk to Simi about it. But I didn’t. I just got on the mat and did the best I could do under the circumstances. Unsurprisingly, my hamstring injury and continual sciatic nerve pain prevented any ease in the practice.
The poses that make up the Ashtanga sequence cover every part of the body so thoroughly that if you have a weakness or injury anywhere in your body, one of the poses will really set off the alarm bells. With this hamstring injury, its Janu Sirsasana B – a forward tilt of the pelvis on one side is now restricted to zero degrees. Janu A is not so bad, and Janu C is a breeze. I didn’t do any 2nd series poses or dropbacks this morning and even missed out a couple of first series poses. Simi may have noticed but she didn’t mention it or query me.
In Parivritta Parsvakonasana, a pose I’ve been enjoying for the last few months (cos I can finally do it with some kind of integrity), my hips felt so weak that they couldn’t hold the forward weight of my torso. Simi adjusted me deeper into the twist but I collapsed out of it. It’s as if the energy channels have been severed in the hip region, quite possibly form overextending in those dropbacks last week. The mind goes there and sends all the right messages, but there’s just no response. Hip lights are out…nobody’s home…come back another time.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Tuesday 23rd March 2004
A very gentle self practice this morning, so gentle that I missed out all my challenging poses. I almost feel like I shouldn’t be doing any Ashtanga with my body in its current condition. Last weekend I had an EXTREME reaction – an aching through my joints, bones and nerves that is only just beginning to ease off. At time I almost felt nauseous from the deep aches. It’s not like anything I’ve ever felt before. I can only put it down to one of two causes…either:
1) just too much yoga: classes, practice and teaching, on top of full time work OR
2) the backbends I did in the three classes last week; enthusiastically dropping back and coming up, challenging handstand dropbacks, plus work into Vrchikasana in Darren’s Iyengar class (balancing in Pincha Mayurasana close to the wall first, then bending the knees and walking feet down the wall to blocks on the floor).
It may well be the backbends as it seems to be affecting my hip joints, front groins and lower back, but the aching branches out to the rest of my body through my nervous system. Yikes, I can only go half way into most poses at the moment and my body is continuously uncomfortable – nerve pains exploding like electric shocks through my back, hips and legs. Something’s definitely not right here so I’m backing off from practice a little. This is definitely not an injury to practice through.
In lovely contrast to this, my mind and my emotions are stable, balanced and at ease. Despite the physical pain, I’m joyously happy. Weird, but true. Life is beautiful.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Wednesday 17th March 2004
The way our lives are constantly changing and evolving is more perfect that we realize. My life seems to run so smoothly, as if each change to my outer circumstances is another piece of a jigsaw puzzle being slotted into place. Perhaps this is a result of many years of Buddhist training; it sort of feels like I’ve paid back all my karma and I’ve now learned how to live in this world skillfully in a way that doesn’t create any negative karma. Finally free.
When we dedicate our life wholeheartedly to a higher purpose, our thoughts become pure, our actions powerful. During the purification that occurs with genuine spiritual endeavor and practice, consequences of past actions rise up effortlessly so they can be released and dissolved. You become sensitive to this cleaning process and can observe it occurring. And when sticky situations arise in daily life, you can usually see the cause and how you’ve attracted the situation for your learning. Instead of reacting with a conditioned response, you observe it clearly and deal with it skillfully.
Deep reflection brings awareness. It’s like shining a light onto things that have been hidden in the dark for a long time; our subconscious habits and mental processes. Observing ourselves dispassionately, watching our lives unfold through the situations that are presented in our daily life, we begin to turn up this light of awareness; it shines brighter so we can clearly see the causes, effects and patterns that manifest from our thoughts . We begin to see our true selves, our true purpose, and the process that moves us towards the full expression of that.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Monday 15th March 2004
First day back at my new (old) job at the art school. The job is challenging but exciting. Visual arts attracts people from all walks of life, all looking for self expression, meaning, personal development. It’s a dynamic, rich and unstable environment, people on the edge…I love it.
My yoga and inner practices will have to bubble away in the background for a short while until the new changes and new schedules settle. I’ll still be teaching 5 classes a week on top of full time work so there’ll be very little time to spare for quiet reflection and meditation – what we need most when we are at our busiest.
Did my first real Ashtanga practice for a whole week (a monthly break we girls get to take). My joints felt a little glued up but I managed the dropbacks and stand ups quite easily. The following handstands (lifting up with feet and knees together) were quite weak – I could only manage three with Simi helping me balance as my body was tired out from the practice by that time, shoulders and arms were pretty shaky. Janu Sirsasana B was traumatic because of my right hamstring injury. And Supta Kurmasana, well I’ve made absolutely no progress in this pose for about six months despite being adjusted into it almost every time. I can clasp my hands easily and wriggle my feet almost together (hell I think they even touched a couple of times!), but crossing them behind the head??? I thought I’d be there by now. C’est la vie.
Plagued as I have been lately by niggling warning signs in my body, I’ve begun to question how I should approach this practice so that I can keep doing it. Funny how you develop a relationship with, and an attachment to your practice. You have to face all the issues that come up that threaten the relationship like injuries and life changes and not deny and ignore the warning signs. Then you have to take responsibility for whatever’s come up and develop a different approach so the relationship can continue and you can grow from it.
Staying with a regular Ashtanga practice when parts of my body are complaining about it can only be done if I listen to their complaints, carefully watch the symptoms, identify the causes, determine the most effective way to deal with them and gently work, perhaps in a different way, to nurture and strengthen the weakened or damaged areas back to health. Likewise in my relationship with my partner I am often being confronted with issues that make me question whether it is worthwhile staying with it and working through the problems. It can only be justified if there’s a wholehearted commitment to work the problems out and not give up when the going gets tough.
"There’s nothing so big that it can’t be run away from” -Oscar Wilde
____________________________________________________________________________________
Thursday 4th March 2004
Two Mysore practices at the shala this week unkindly reflected mind states of great polarity. Monday morning was strong, powerful and focused. My body was open and I managed to stand up from the dropbacks.
This morning I just had to drag myself through the two hour practice with a thickly glued up body that made most poses excruciating. I realized early on that I wouldn’t be able to practice strongly and accepted that today I’d just be going through the physical motions, trying to assume a superficial replication of the shape of each pose and trusting that even this would be of some benefit. Every micro adjustment I tried to make felt like a major surgical incision.
Simi adjusted me nicely in Marichyasana C. I usually love the adjustment teachers do in this pose where they sit in front of you, put a levering foot outside your bent knee and pull your arm around. But then Simi placed her hand tenderly on my face and guided it further around…such loving and healing hands are a teacher’s greatest gift.
I moved only half way into the poses this morning and that felt challenging enough. There’s a kind of sliding tolerancy scale that changes with each practice. Some days when the body is open and the mind receptive, the boiling point is high and I can work deeply, absorbed in the process with an intense focus and a desire to challenge my limitations and extend the boundaries of my practice. And then there are days like today, pitifully low tolerance level, glued up body, fragile mental state, where I feel the need to protect myself against the practice. I hold back, knowing that if I cross the tolerance threshold, I’ll shatter like glass.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Monday 1st March 2004
I’m noticing that the physical concerns of my practice are slowly being replaced with a growing sensitivity of how to generate and mobilize the power of prana more consistently. It comes and goes though depending on the state of my mind and body.
This morning’s practice was light and powerful and yielded many gifts. Those little niggly problems in my body like my injured hamstring and my weakening left shoulder sort of faded into the background as I tried to maintain my focus on mulabandha in each pose – it’s becoming more refined, less of a muscular pull and more an energetic lift that I generate from my metaphysical base. In Dog Pose, I feel mulabandha drawing energy all the way up from the balls of my feet which come alive as they are activated. On a good day the practice is moving into a whole new dimension now. On a bad day, well, you get to revisit all those lessons on acceptance and patience.
Drop back time came around this morning and I had absolutely no fears or hesitation for a change. The force was with me! I summonded the courage to attempt coming back up for the first time and to my amazement I did it, slightly overshooting and landing on my knees for the first one. I’d always envisaged my first attempts failing to even get up – the fear was always that I’d fall back down and land on my head. But Simi’s one simple instruction to think of lifting the hips rather than coming forward did it for me (“Imagine a gossamer thread pulling the hips upwards”) and I guess because my mind was so calm and clear this morning I could direct that intent into my body, process it and produce the correct action without any interfering static and confusion (as has been my Pasasana experience).
So I did 5 dropbacks and came up on every one – the last one controlled and perfect.
SHIFT HAPPENS
No doubt next time it will be different when I attempt it from a less focused mind state. I fully expect to land back on my head at some future point.
Sirsasana was a powerfully peaceful experience. Some days I can just fine tune it to a perfectly effortless balance, the spine so vertically aligned that gravity has no effect – I feel weightless, suspended in outer space. I’m really enjoying these Headstands lately.
After such a delicious practice I finally came to rest in Savasana, contented, fulfilled, with nothing more on this earth that I could possible want. A deep peace pervaded every cell of my body and my heart expanded with love and gratitude.
If only it was always like this…clear mind, strong body. What makes it like this? If I knew, could I maintain and control those conditions that contribute to feeling such internal velocity? Yesterday I was a write off – no energy, lethargic and sleepy for no discernable reason!
About Turn
Life’s about to change again. In 2 weeks I’ll be taking up a new position at the Art School where I worked for 8 years before leaving in February 2003. It’s a place I know and love, and work that I know and love. It’s a full time position and an all consuming one.
The perfectly balanced yoga life that I’d carefully crafted out for myself, working 3 days a week so I could slowly increase my yoga teaching commitments, is now about to come to an abrupt end.
I can’t yet envisage how it will impact on me – perhaps I don’t even want to think about it. There’ll be less time to practice, less space for internal reflection, and I’m a little worried that teaching may become more of a burden than a joy. Although the 7 classes a week that I was scheduled to teach from the end of March had me quite excited, I was also a little anxious that I was taking on too much too soon in my teaching career. It felt like a big commitment to an alternative life.
Now I’ll have to balance a challenging day job with part time yoga teaching (maybe 4 classes a week) along with all the other commitments to myself and others that I want to maintain.
____________________________________________________________________________________
