Diary of a yoga nobodhi

Friday 12th August 2005

Piking Out
Well I’m beating myself up good today and I deserve every bit of it. I promised Kirsty I’d meet her at the shala at 5.45am for practice this morning but when that alarm went off I turned it off and said stuff it. I was half expecting her to do the same. Kirsty has often planned to come to Gallery practice and not turned up, so I figured she’d probably pike out too, but that’s no excuse – I should have gone.

And you guessed it, she turned up and she waited for me. The shala’s unfamiliar territory for Kirsty. She practised there with me for the first time last week, and she’s still a beginner Ashtangi so she needs to follow someone (eg. me). So I feel really bad she was left there waiting. But to her great credit, she went in anyway and practiced with the little group of dedicated, advanced morning yogis. Good on you Kirsty. And bad on me.

So that’s as low as I go. I’ve hit rock bottom now and never will I do that again to someone. It’s become a very, very, bad habit of mine to pike out. More beating to come.
I did the same thing to Kosta on Wednesday, promising to be there. I don’t’ know if he went to practice at the shala but I know that I didn’t. I decided to make up for it and planned to meet Sasha there on Thursday. This time I went – she didn’t.
We’re all sort of playing musical chairs (if you know that game).

Tomorrow I’ll get that beating that I deserve.
Tomorrow I’m going to my boyfriend’s class at 10am– he’s finally teaching yoga again, but the bad news is that it will be the only class I get to do with him because I start teaching yoga as well from next week. We’ll both be teaching Saturday classes at the same time.
His class will be intense work, long holds, sensitive, strong adjustments. He has a natural, effortless gift for teaching that I can only aspire to.

I expect to be sore all weekend.

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Thursday 11th August 2005

Symphony in Marichyasana C major
It was a friendly kind of practice this morning – a nice balance of effort and ease. I shouldn’t have practiced at all (monthly female cycle) but yesterday I felt an overwhelming urge to practice at the shala. I’ve missed the inner satisfaction of being a committed yogi but I think it might be gradually coming back.

I noticed again this morning that it’s almost impossible for me to engage mulabandha when I’m menstruating (the natural energetic flow down and out of the pelvic area is quite a subtle force and prevents the drawing up of energy from the perineum). Interesting to note also that my exhalations were much longer and more controlled than my inhalations. The exhalation is a cleaning out, a release, an apana process (along with elimination etc) so as I was doing my Surja Namaskars I was contemplating the relationship between menstruation and apana – the elimination of excess waste, toxins, by-products etc from the system. Maybe there’s a connection between the menstrual and respiratory processes as the exhalation is also a release of waste (carbon dioxide etc) from the system. All playful speculation really.

But the practice itself was a very consistent one – energy was good all the way through. Sometimes you start practice all revved up and energetic and think you’re going to fly through it, only to find you’re carked halfway through. But today the energy stayed at a constant level and maybe even moved up a notch or two halfway through. So the practice overall felt solid, even and really really nice. The steadiness I felt is probably a reflection of the ease and contentedness I’m feeling within myself. I found I could move a little deeper into a lot of the poses today because of this mental ease and openness. No sense of pushing or trying to get further, but more a peaceful connected feeling: “Well here I am in Marichy C, I think I’ll just open it a little more, lift the sternum, drop the shoulders, draw up from the perineum to the crown, now see what little bits I can open up by doing …this…and...this…. Hey, this is fun.”

It was a lighter, more musical approach to the work in the pose. Then it started to take on a bit more depth as I held the pose and it slowly transformed from a little song into an all out symphony.

One part of the mind was directing the prana up and down the spine –once this was established it acted like the base rhythm of the song. Then gradually, almost stealthily in crept the next part – you almost don’t notice it at first. This is the level where all the little grips in the joints and muscles start to release one by one, but if you lose the focus on the baseline, it all falls apart. You have to keep that base rhythm going.

So now I have two layers happening, the underlying rhythmic movement of the breath/prana and then the subsequent relinquishing of the body to the twist. I watch the duet happening, one is intentional, the other happens as a graceful result. Tension held in the hips, ankles, shoulders, sacrum, diaphragm and throat just melts away bit by bit, moment by moment. While all this is happening I introduce the final layer, the leading melody to complete the symphony. It lures the twisting body further and deeper into the pose, a crescendo upwards to the finale.
Such perfect harmony with so many voices working together.
Poses can become really masterful artistic creations that play out the push/pull dynamic of effort and yielding. Today I rose to Marichyasana C.

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