Peeking Around the Doorframe

Hi!! *Peeks around shyly from door frame.*

I've missed y'all! Believe me, I'm here. I just haven't been coming out of my little house, or sitting on the porch and waving, or even shouting "hello!" from the window. But know that I'm watching, looking out and glad to know there's a happy little yoga blogging community out there. 

It's been a while since I've posted. Sometimes, the stuff that swallows up your life just doesn't belong on a blog!

But that doesn't mean that stuff doesn't belong in the yoga room. Man, I don't need to tell you, it's nice to have something steady to come to whenever a good sweat is needed.

I've been reminded lately of how much of a barometer yoga is. Weeks where I'm happy and calm, I march straight up to the front row, confident that my practice will simply be what it is, and that I don't need to worry about what's going to happen. Weeks where things are more challenging, I hang out in the back. My mind takes over, I'm wobbly, and I feel like my classes aren't "good." Always, though, I am pretty sure the yoga affords me tiny glimpses of awareness I wouldn't otherwise get, to say nothing of the physical benefits.

Fortunately, my new work schedule (it seems to change semesterly!) allows me to practice at different times, and I love how different the practice is at various times of the day! I get up for the 6:30 a.m. class on Friday mornings, and I'm solid and steady. I do all the postures and I'm happy to be there, like I've discovered some secret cache of time and place that only a handful of others know about. 9:00 a.m.s are a struggle, but I always feel like I won some sort of epic battle. And then, there are the p.m. classes. I suffer, I struggle, and then I struggle because I'm mad at myself for struggling. Fortunately, I leave cleansed, refreshed and just a bit lighter on the inside and out.

So... home is warm and safe, but I sure do miss my network of yogis. Know that I'm here and I'm reading!

Falling's not so Bad

So, the holidays. I was looking forward to a couple of weeks off, enjoying our family's usual lazy-paced way of celebrating the holidays and then taking a few days of R&R before getting back to work. But life has an odd way of tweaking (or in this case, twisting) your plans around until they sit squarely on their heads.

A couple of family emergencies came breezing through, which prevented me from getting me to yoga as much as I'd like and from doing online anything except the Blog Roll Skim every couple of days. I miss y'all--the yoga, the blogging community--but I'm also grateful for the closeness that grows between family and friends during crises like these.

After the holidays passed and the two situations got somewhat under control, I hopped in my car and drove to Mammoth Mountain for a few days of skiing. Although I'm missing my boyfriend, who had to fly out to deal with his own family emergency, I'm allowing myself to enjoy a breath of clean, cold mountain air, dear friends... and the drama that comes up while you're on the slopes.

Even here, hundreds of miles from home, I am reminded of how you really can't escape who you are. Even up here, "away" from everything, my own neurotic tendencies come out. I follow my friends down big, scary ski hills, and it's a constant struggle to just be present. Just like in a Bikram class, my mind takes over. (It's a little scarier to hear yourself say "you are not gonna make it!" when you're barreling down an endlessly long hill.) In a desperate attempt to combat this tendency, I do the same thing as I do in Bikram: try to be in the moment. Notice what's happening. Feel the difference in texture of the snow as the skis race over it. Or, when I'm really scared, the Buddhist proverb, "Mind like sky," will do the trick.

What's also interesting to notice is that, just like in work, love, and life in general, it's the middle part that gets me scared. I'm excited at the beginning, but when I'm far from the start and can't see the finish line, I panic. It's funny to observe that happen at warp speed when you're coming down the slope.

There have been so many beautiful moments, though, and they don't always come when you expect them. I took the following photo after I'd fallen. I just lay there, exhausted at the middle of what was then a difficult run for me. After the jarring fall, though, I was just there. No thought, just sensory experience. Too bad it took a fall to get out of my head!

I hope you are enjoying your Januarys! Stay HOT!

Falling's not so bad if you stop to take in the view.

Oh, the Memories.

I love the end of the year. I enjoy the holidays, the time off, and the turning of the old year into the new. I revel in reflecting over the year. Even if the downs stand out front and center, I manage to be able to anticipate lots of ups in the coming year.

Of course, I've been reflecting a lot about yoga class. Last Saturday, I had a pretty tough one. It was hot, it was humbling, and I had to leave the room during the standing series. Initially, I was so humbled it hurt. As I walked back toward the hot room, feeling the heat and dread radiating at me, I realized that I actually had come a long way, baby, since starting up this practice again.

I remember my first day back. I knew it would be tough, but I thought, "I run miles at a time. I'm in pretty darn good shape. I bet I do OK." Uh, no.

But from there, it was progress. One way or another. Midway through the semester, I remind my composition students that learning is not always a pretty, straightforward process. We desperately want it to be like this!

But really, it's more like this.

It goes up, it goes down, and there may be more than one way of measuring progress. Learning--progressing--in life or in yoga is so not straightforward.

I remember when I couldn't stand in standing-head-to-knee pose, even with the leg sort-of locked, for the full minute or 30 seconds. My standing leg would just burn, and I'd have to come out early.

I remember when I couldn't do Camel for both sets. I'd feel like my heart was a hummingbird and that someone was about to eviscerate me.

I remember that in Fixed Firm, because knees and ankles tight from running, I couldn't go all the way back. Kaphlbahti breathing made me feel sick, and I could never, ever balance fully in Toe Stand.

Most of all, I remember that I would always have this odd misconception of what other students in the class were capable of, even though I rarely look around the room. "You suck! Everyone else is doing this pose better than you!" I'd say to myself.

I'm happy to say all those things aren't true anymore. Well, they're usually not true anymore. Other challenges have cropped up as some resolve, and some of my hot room demons still haunt my practice.

Progress may not go in that nice, upward line, but one thing is certain: it always goes forward.

Renovation!

I've been contemplating renovation lately. It's definitely not time for spring cleaning, but the holidays and the coming of the new year get me into pensive contemplation mode. I walk around the house, thinking, "If only I had the motivation to re-pot those chili plants. They've been hanging on for dear life for 9 months now. Gosh, I wish I had the time and the interior design know-how to replace those gnarly curtains in the bedroom."

You would not believe the curtains in the bedroom. They're red, they're IKEA (like, cheap, old IKEA), and they've been sagging and pretty much non-functional since I installed them two and a half years ago. I've been wanting to replace them since about five minutes after I put 'em up. I have ambitions to get a lot of projects done over the winter break because once the semester is under way, I'm lucky to be able to  shower regularly. 

My house needs a lot of work, but even more than my house, the inside of my head needs a little dusting and rearranging.

There's a very cool Ani Difranco song, "Back, Back, Back," that addresses exactly the idea of working on yourself now so that you're not stuck later.

She sings, "When you sit right down in the middle of yourself,
you're gonna want to have a comfortable chair
So renovate your soul before you get too old,
'cause you're gonna be housebound there."

OK, cool. Learn how to be contented with life now, because as we age, the many distractions we desperately cling to now are likely to disappear. I think most of us believe in the validity of that message, one way or another. But how do you actually renovate your soul? And what does the final "house" look like?

One of the things I'm constantly working on is my tendency to over-please. I realize that I do so even during yoga class. I think I know why I love taking classes from new teachers: I perceive them as having no expectations of me, and as a result, I "do" better. When I take a class from my studio owner (whom I love love love, by the way), I stress myself out. I wage an unnecessarily silly mental battle with myself. Because I've been practicing with her for a year and a half now, I have this self-important idea that she remembers stuff about me and holds me to a certain standard. "You NEVER sit out this posture, E. She's gonna remember! Get your fingers to your toes--that's what she's always seen you do before!" Ridiculous. Ludicrous. And as a result of that silly inner-battle, I stress myself out and add to the intensity of it all.

So, when I saw that my studio owner was teaching this morning, I made a promise to myself, a promise I apparently need to make myself before every class. "This class is NOT about her. Just listen to the words and focus on your body." Hand to God, the class was about 50% better than it normally was. I was able not to worry about what I perceived her to be thinking.

Maybe today's class had nothing to do with the actual renovation process. But maybe, I at least took out and contemplated the tools.

One day, I will actually take down those disgusting curtains.

Enjoy this cheesy video for Ani song :-)

A cocooned blob

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all. Among many, many things that I'm grateful for, I'm grateful for that sensation that hot yogis know intimately well: the hot room blob. You know the feeling: your legs are weak, your arms are jello, and you seriously doubt your spine is still inside your body.

OK, I freakin' hate that feeling, and it usually comes sometime around Triangle, and sometimes it makes me sit out sets of the poses.

But, as I learned today, being a blob is not such a bad thing.

Many of you already know about this lovely biological wonder, but my literature and yoga-oriented self somehow missed the day in science class when the teachers talked about how caterpillars change into a butterfly. The process fits so perfectly with what happens in the hot room.

Apparently, caterpillars do not create a cocoon, go to sleep, and simply grow wings. The entire structure of their bodies have to dissolve first before they can turn into a butterfly. As this cheesy but kinda cool website explains, the caterpillar dissolves into a blob, breaking itself down. Kind of depressing to think that you could break open a cocoon at one point during the development and see nothing but ooze, huh?

But then, these special little "imaginal cells" start cropping up, and they become more and more numerous and overtake the blobby cells. As the author of the website notes, "Eventually, [the imaginal cells] become a large community and they switch gears from simply being a group of like-minded cells into the programming cells of the butterfly."

That is the metamorphosis. The caterpillar probably doesn't have this great awareness about its fate and how it's going to change. Yet somehow, the caterpillar knows to eat a lot, create the chrysallis, and allow its body to break down and transform.

The relationship between this biological process and yoga is obvious, right? The heat and the poses breaks us down, allowing ourselves to grow into something better. None of us have really attained our butterfly statuses, but we somehow know that we've got to allow our "selves" to break down. Something is there, and once we allow the process to happen, nature/god/whatever will take its course and the right thing will emerge from the chrysallis.

Maybe the whole cocoon/transformation thing can be a meditation point for tough moments in the hot room, huh?

(You know, I wanted to post a cool nature picture here. But you also know if you've been following my blog for a while that my one weird phobia is caterpillars. Maybe appreciating their process will ease that phobia just a bit more :-)

Liar, liar!

Lately I've been thinking about what it means to be honest. I mean, really honest. Some of us have a habit of telling white lies. Some of us construct elaborate scenarios about our pasts or future in order to get us what we want. We can lie to ourselves about who we really are--we can say we're stupid, no good, and undeserving of anything good that comes our way, when really the opposite is true. And then, there are other kinds of lies that we tell ourselves. 

I am not a chronic liar. Nor do I enjoy telling white lies. But one of the few concrete memories I have of being a little kid involves a lie. When I was about three years old, I sat with my brother, staring at a tiny nick in my bedroom's rainbow wallpaper. I looked at my brother with what was probably a devilish grin and grabbed at the nick, pulling off big chunks. My brother, who was less than two years old and didn't really talk yet, sat and watched.

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and my mother walked in after my brother and I were admiring my handiwork. "Who did this?!" she shouted. Fear filled my gut, and I pointed my finger at my brother and spoke ever-so-convincingly, "He did!"

My poor brother, who was too young to talk and defend himself, knew before the shit hit the fan what my false accusation meant. He started crying immediately, one of the few expressions his little toddler vocabulary allowed for. My mother, who was always the most restrained, loving, and gentle woman, must have reached her wits' end. We were never spanked, but my brother got one that day. 

I remember four-year-old me listening to him cry and feeling this strange emotion come up in me. I sat on that story for a good long time. Not until I was a teenager did my brother, mom and I talk about that day. My mother was shocked to learn the "real" story. My brother also remembers the incident and still feels just the tiniest bit pissed off about it. Thankfully, we can laugh about it now. It felt good, even as a teenager, to talk about it.

I don't think I tell such bald-faced lies anymore. But maybe I've just learned to tell more elaborate ones--especially to myself.

I've been practicing Bikram yoga for over a year and a half now, and I always had a regular yoga practice before I started this. I should be no stranger to stretching and strengthening by now! However, when it comes down to it, I admit I rarely give 100% in class. This is especially true in any hamstring stretch poses. For no good reason whatsoever, I am terrified of pulling a muscle in hands-to-feet pose or any of the head-to-knee poses. I get myself "into" the posture and hang out right in the comfort zone. "Save some energy for later. You're gonna injure yourself," I tell myself. "You're already working hard enough just being in the hot room."

It's as bad as the straight-up lie I told my mom as a child.

OK, so, lying to yourself about how hard you're working in yoga class isn't the biggest problem on the planet. But isn't what we do in class a mirror of what we do in life? The little lies we tell ourselves are just the walls we build to our own prisons.

Tonight, I stopped the lying in my yoga classafter being present enough to first recognize that there was no need to hold myself back in standing-head-to-knee pose. I was able to see it was just fear. I pulled my head just a little bit further toward my feet. I allowed myself to feel discomfort in the back of my legs. It may not have been "Pain sensation," but for the first time in a long time, I let myself really feel something. No fear, no lies, just feeling.

And guess what? It felt good.    

It's not a Greek Tragedy. Get It Together.

I should probably wait until I've processed today's class just a bit more before posting about it, but I'm compelled to write about it anyway. What follows is un-edited and probably rant-y :-)

I had the day off from classes today, and I was looking forward to a 9:00 a.m. class followed by a nice lunch, some paper grading, and then a dinner with friends. Foolishly, I was really expecting it to be a strong class. I was rested, I didn't feel overly stressed, and for me, 9:00 is late compared to the 6:30 a.m. classes I usually attend. And then, I saw that a new teacher was gonna teach! It was gonna be great!

Oh. My. GOD. What happened in there was enough to send a seasoned soldier running back to his mama's apron strings. I still can't quite figure out just what happened, but here's what I do know.

The teacher, a Greek guy visiting from Chicago, I think, was just fabulous. I had never heard his name before, but he clearly knew his stuff and was animated and motivating. Some teachers just know how to get the most out of you, and this guy was one of them. But for no explicable reason, today I had nothing to give. Yes, it was unbearably hot and humid, but something was off. That "heart ripping out of my body" feeling started up in Awkward, and it just never went away. And during Standing Head-to-Knee, I started crying.

I went to the bathroom and something just broke open inside me. I sobbed as if I had just recalled a great loss I'd swept under the rug for years. It felt like I was caught in some horrible nightmare. To make matters worse, this was happening with a fabulous visiting teacher. I wanted to soak up every moment, and instead I was having a breakdown in the bathroom.

Perhaps out of a desire not to feel like a total quitter, I dragged myself back into the room. I wish I could say I found some amazing technique to calm myself down and get it together, but that didn't happen. I spent the rest of the standing series lying down and getting up, feeling like I was in a strange new world--in no way did it feel like the yoga studio I'd been practicing in for a year and a half. After the teacher mentioned he was Greek, I couldn't stop pitying myself by comparing myself to Homer. Or Odysseus. Ha. Terrible, I know. Funny the way we can catastrophize what's happening to us.

Fortunately, after the heat was turned down slightly and we got to the floor, things eased up. I was able to do all the floor series and really enjoyed the visiting instructor's amazing class. I really, really wish I could remember what he said, because the guy talked constantly during savasanas, and almost none of it was pointless. He seemed to have a very thorough understanding of how the body worked and what was happening to our emotions and to our spirit as we practiced. He had a very unique take on things--the class felt so fresh.

I do remember one thing he said. He quoted a Native American proverb (tribe unnamed ;-) that goes something like, "when we're at the breaking point, that is when the spirit will enter." He may say that at every class, and I've heard versions of that in yoga classes before. This time, though, it hit home. It may be of little comfort to you in the moment, but if it helps at all to think of it, remember that we're pushing ourselves to the breaking point for a reason. Something is happening! :-)