A return to the mat

Today upon rising my wonky left shoulder wasn’t so wonky or painful and I took that as a sign that it was safe to return to my physical practice…gently of course.

I decided to pick up largely where I had left off with my Samisthiti practice, the one in which the principle posture is standing. I’m starting to enjoy it very much. There’s a lot of things coalescing around me right now, including a realization I have some of the worst body awareness going. I’ve lived most of my life from the chin up and my body from the clavicles south is pretty much uncharted territory. One would think that after the amount of time I’ve spent in a yoga class of some type, I would have got it by now. Uhhhhhh, no, I haven’t. I’m just starting to figure out that I’m now starting to get it. What can I say? I’m on the slow learning curve.

So for me, the last few days have been an extremely interesting and minorly uncomfortable experience. I suddenly notice my normal little misalignments of body structure, how my body habitually twists and what has probably always felt uncomfortable but has remained unnoticed for me. It sounds a bit silly but I’m a person who has lived inside my mind all of my life, certainly all of my adult life. Now, I just seem to be appreciating that I have a body as well.

The previous experiments in Parivrtta Trikonasana are paying dividends. The lesson from Yoga Journal on grounding through the legs and not allowing my hips to swivel is really adding a punch to the posture. Now the twist is working through my thoracic spine whereas before I was allowing the lower side hip to drop and shortcut the process.

On other notes, last night’s gathering with my fellow new teachers and our teacher was hugely rewarding. One, I’ve come to love these women and keeping track of what’s new in their lives is important to me. Secondly, my teacher is fresh back from her time with her teacher and she’s packing new ideas on how to continue our training. Next class is in September and I’m looking forward to it. As grateful as I am to be returning to my own practice, I will be glad to resume the structure of class, etc, particularly starting to delve more deeply into the Sutras.

Thanks for reading and Namaste,

Kate

Some points on a triangle

Wow. Today’s exercise in exploring the basics of Parivrtta Trikonasana — the revolved triangle — was an eyeopener. I was using the article in this month’s Yoga Journal to guide me through the process. I warmed up with a few breaths of Samasthiti, some forward bends with arm movement to open the upper back and Parshva Uttanasana — the one sided stretch with arms movements to keep working the upper back.

The Yoga Journal article had a couple of variations and I decided to stick with the first. It’s a highly modified Parivrtta Trikonasana but boy, is it instructive!!! It’s taken with parallel feet, spread wide on the long axis of the mat. Exhale torso until it’s level with the floor and place the hand on a block that’s in line with body centre. This gives a starting place where the back is long and extended, sacrum flat. Keeping the legs (and hips) engaged pushed the twist as I lifted one arm up into the thoracic spine.

I very quickly became aware that I have developed a habitual shortcut with this posture. I’ve been dropping the hip on the side opposite to the upraised arm in order to facilitate the twist. Taking the posture this way made me very aware of how I’m using the rotational capacity of the lumbar spine and the swivel in the hips to keep the thoracic spine from letting go of its customary rigidity.

I will definitely be repeating this process as a way of teaching the muscles in the middle back to let go. The posture was held fairly long … 8 breaths on each side — consciously lengthening the spine on the inhalation phase and releasing into the twist (now located in my mid spine!!) on the exhale phase.

After both sides, I laid on my back, just letting the curves of the spine find the mat and floor. The entire thoracic section was alive and energized. It really felt terrific. I finished the session with a few repetitions of Bridge and Apanasana to release the spine.

Thanks for reading and Namaste,

Kate

Arrrrrrrgh…

For the record, I hate working dayshifts. And just to add to the joy of it all, I switched shifts with someone so I’m working 4 of them in a row. Egads, 4 days that start at 4:15 am …well theoretically start at 4:15. Today I was awake at 3 because…who knows?

I’m feeling a lot of tension in my neck and shoulder area this morning. It’s the sitting in a chair for 12 hours at a time that does it. The cycling doesn’t help as I have a tendency to “turtle” on the bike, pushing my shoulders towards my ears. Why? I have no earthly idea. This morning’s practice is going to be attending a little to that area of the body. I’m still working with the Samasthiti session I constructed a few days ago. There’s still something in need of tweaking there… I suspect the problem is with the end of it.

In any event, I’m off to the mat. There’s something in me right now that’s in desperate need of a few held breaths of Parivrtta trikonosana revolved triangle to bring my back and shoulders to normal.

Thanks for reading and Namaste,

Kate

Wish I had said it first…

Over there at “Meeting Myself on the Mat”, a blog I’ve come to really enjoy, YogaGuide has some interesting things to say. Well, she usually does but today’s words of wisdom are about training ourselves to wait until the dust has settled and all the facts are in before we act. It’s good advice — “Shut your pie hole; Watch your mind.”

Watching my mind. Now that’s a circus act in and of itself. My mind loves to wander over and play with its latest obsession at the drop of a hat. I’m a police dispatcher (fire dispatcher, 9-1-1 operator — baby, we do it all) and that job is all about multi-tasking. Pretty much, I’m a professional multi-tasker, bringing order to the chaos and loving every flipping nanosecond of it. I make a damn good living because I can keep about 6 balls in the air at all times and rarely drop one. It’s a system that richly rewards one for having the capacity to mentally flit from topic to perception to memory to sensation to topic in rapid succession.

This little monkey mind of mine just loves to keep busy. Even when she’s supposed to sit still and be here, be now, be with the moment, live inside the breath, she’s secretly looking over her shoulder for the first chance she has to escape and go play with her latest obsession. This week, that would be the business of yoga. I graduated less than a month ago and oh brother, have I hit the ground running. I’ve booked teaching space, and started this blog and put up a web page and registered my business name and interviewed an accountant and wrote a conference proposal and put together a 20 page business plan., In my spare time, I worked a full time job. More or less, I think one can safely say it’s a reasonable start on things and there is NO current requirement to panic. First public class is still 6 weeks away. First night of class is in September!!

So today, while in the midst of my practice, enjoying a nice supine twist, where do I catch little Miss Monkey Mind? Not on the mat. Not with the breath…nooooooooooooo, she’s off digging in the files marked “Future workshop proposals”. And not just glancing at them with longing…oh no. She had them out of the box and papers scattered everywhere. I might have looked like I was on the mat but no, I was actually living in some future reality that may or may not have a workshop in it.

Get back here!!

Sigh. What am I to do with this little Miss Monkey Mind? In the time honoured tradition of yogis everywhere, there was but one thing to do … breathe. Come back to the breath. Give Miss Mind something to play with over here in the right now. Inhale. Exhale. The files and the workshops and the plans will be here later today. Now is the time of practice. Now is the time to let go of all the what ifs and the what might be’s and just BE.

Between here and the grave, I know Miss Monkey Mind is going to dart out a thousand more times. Ten thousand more times. Tens of thousands of more times. So why do I persevere? I keep at it for two reasons; One, I’ve had glimpses and hints that this stuff actually works. I’m calmer, more controlled and making better decisions than I was five years ago. It’s hard to argue with results. Secondly, I do it because Yoga Guide is right. This is training. This is the honing of skills in a safe, low risk environment.

Today, on my mat, in the security of my own home, there were no consequences to Miss Monkey Mind’s mad dash escape to play with her baubles, other than I was annoyed with the phenomenon. Recovery was merely a case of breathe, bring her back, breathe, breathe and return to practice. It’s not always consequence free. Sometimes we really need to be on our game.

In my job, a moment’s inattention or my mind elsewhere can have some horrific consequences — loss of life or the preventable injury and suffering of a co-worker. It’s easier to see in my job because the consequences are so immediate (and potentially subject to judicial inquiry). It’s not just work life either. There’s been many moments as a parent when I know I could have done better if I’d been fully present in the moment while dealing with my child. My words to my husband might have been more understanding. I might have picked up clues for a co-worker or friend that would cue me to be more compassionate.

Being here, fully aware and in the moment is a very powerful deliberate act because Life is forever presenting us with moments when we have to be “spot on” our game. Those are the moments when we need to act from a place of discernment and clarity and inner wisdom because those are the moments when we have one and only one shot to get it right. Consequences are high; room for error is nil. This is the purpose of practice. It’s not about how deep we move into a posture, the state of our hamstrings or the external rotation of our shoulders. That’s the training run and its function is getting us prepared for Game Day… also known as the Rest of Your Life.

Thanks for reading and Namaste,

Kate

Yoga blahs

The mat is rolled out on the floor behind me. It’s been there for the last….6 hours? … and still my feet haven’t landed on it in any sense of the word. I’m avoiding practice today like my mat was infested with scorpions. Worse yet, I’m self-aware enough to know I’m avoiding.

How many excuses can I cook up today for mat-avoidance-itis? Probably a good half dozen without breaking stride. It’s hot. I’m lazy. My feet hurt. It’s Wednesday. I had word from a friend about her most unhappy news and my heart is breaking for her and her husband. I have a headache.

All perfectly good reasons for avoiding doing my practice. So what’s eventually going to drag my feet to the mat? Partly, I suppose it’s something called discipline. A “We do yoga because we do yoga” kind of mentality. Don’t laugh — it got me through about 3 months of my teacher’s training. Fact is, both mind and body are too scattered for me to find my way to the mat today.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I hear this echo from the Sutras. Abhyasa and vairagya. The aphorism I.12 is a bit of a smack upside the head right now. Using the Bernard Bouanchaud translation:

Control over the mind’s fluctuations comes from persevering practice and non-attachment. (PYS: 1.12)

In short, I’ve spent the last 6 hours gamely trying to put the cart before the horse. It’s not about getting my head clear enough to practice. It’s the practice that’s going to make my head clear. The excuses are starting to look a little lamer by the nanosecond.

One of the things I like about the Bouanchaud translation (The Essence of Yoga, 1997 — out of print in North America, still available at a reasonable cost in India) is each aphorism has a list of questions for the reader to ask him or herself about the meaning of the Sutra. Here’s one of the questions he poses about this one:

To what extent does persevering practice help or hinder my daily life?

Now there’s something for me to think about and if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to go visit the mat.

Namaste,

Kate