Day Four

I went to a one-hour class today. It was a lunchtime Vinyasa flow, and boy was I achey and sore from the classes yesterday. Opening up my shoulders to bind things and fold forward hurt like hell. And I came face-to-face with my biggest yoga foe at the moment: arm balances.

Arm balances. I suck at them. Crow pose? It seems like every yogini on the planet can do crow pose. Except for me. And originally I was like, well, maybe I just don't have the wrist strength yet. Or the ab strength. Or the upper arm strength. But lately I've realized that I do have that strength. I'm just terrified of falling on my face. And this is what kept me from playing soccer and what kept me from enjoying tetherball and other mundane things. But seriously. Why can't I do a freaking arm balance?

So I guess the only thing to do is work on it.

But, BUT. There was a girl in the class today who was probably ten years old. And when the teacher demonstrated the arm balance, she said "wowwwwwwww." And everyone in the class was thinking it, but she was the only one brave enough to say it, and it was awesome. I wish there was a ten-year-old in every yoga class.

Day Three (Yesterday)

Yesterday I hit not one, but two hour-and-a-half classes. The first one was an Anusara-inspired flow at the studio right down the block. I guess I've been steering away from Anusara classes because I find them a little bit cultey, and although I won't be becoming a devotee any time soon, I did love the class. Afterward I felt well-rested, well-stretched, and kind of radiant. It was cool. Maybe because of the first class, I was really paying attention to how I felt in the second class, which was at my old studio. During the meditation, I felt like I wanted to jump out of my skin. But then, during the class, I conquered a major obstacle for me: the splits. I came farther into Hanumanasana than I've ever even gotten close to before- I just had a bolster holding my hip about two inches off the floor. For me, who spent most of middle school not even being able to touch my toes, this is huge. Me: 1, Fear: 0.

Thinking about the fear thing has been making me think about all the things that go with fear, like hate and judgment. I had a few friends who identify as Christian post some things on Facebook that I felt projected intense hatred and belittlement toward people who practice Islam, in the wake of Bin Laden being killed. Last night after I got home (from my almost-total Hanumanasana! Score!!) I felt emotionally dragged back to high school, where this kind of debate was commonplace in the mostly-Christian group I was a part of. I always felt ignored, slighted, or put down for my beliefs and views, even when they weren't that different. One of my best friends in high school told me that when I practiced yoga, I was worshiping Satan. I was told by various Christian sects that I wasn't baptized early enough (I was seven), I was baptized too early for it to "count," I wasn't really baptized at all since I hadn't had a full-immersion baptism, that I couldn't take communion (by Catholics), that I wasn't really Christian because I was too close to Catholic (by Baptists), that I wasn't spending enough time in church, that I was spending too much time in the wrong kind of church. These messages were really confusing for a kid, and I hope they have made me very conscious of the judgment that I pass on the beliefs of others.

But I didn't do a good job last night. The post that triggered me so much started with a lamentation that six million Jewish people were killed in the Holocaust, only to be replaced with twenty million Muslim people in Spain, who had presumably brought with them poverty and sloth and idleness. Then there was a list of Jewish people who had won the Nobel prize, and a much shorter list of Islamic people who had won the same prize. This was supposed to be shocking because there is a much larger Muslim population in the world than Jewish population. Then there was a quiz, where the answer to a lot of violent "who done it" were Muslim men.

There are obvious numbers to refute these facts, and I'm not going to post them here because I've been thinking about them all day and I think that my thinking about it any more is not going to do anybody any good. Suffice to say, something similar to this could easily be posted about any major religious group, and a part of me wanted to produce an almost identical post targeting Christianity, just to prove a point. We are all individuals within a belief system, and we can't hold others within that system culpable for the actions of a few, no more than we could hold an entire race or gender culpable for the actions of a few. I'm not saying that I agree with everything in the Muslim faith. I definitely don't. But I don't really hold 100% to any major world religion, and I have similar issues with them all. Many of them, including Islam and Christianity, appear to condone violent acts if you read the texts that way.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I, within and concerning myself only, want to feel compassion for both people practicing Islam, and people practicing Christianity. I don't want to get into a place where I feel so trapped and exasperated and am trying desperately to make an argument that I know won't be heard, and I definitely don't want to be judgmental or appear violent myself because I'm trying to prove a point. I don't want to be a giant oxymoron, yelling and stabbing at people in the name of peace. All I can really control is myself, anyway, and I feel like that's all I should want to control.

But I don't have all the answers. And I know I won't- so I think maybe for right now instead of pretending that I do have answers, I should just listen to what's going on around me and think about it as peacefully as I can. Maybe all this yoga can help with that.

Day Two

Today instead of going to the new studio, I went to my friend's class this morning. It was yoga stretch, and it did. My hamstrings need some rest and probably ibuprofin this evening. After the class we went to Whole Foods and got stuff for a picnic and took it out to Walden Pond in Concord. This is where Thoreau lived, and (more importantly) where Louisa May Alcott grew up. The weather was beautiful, the sun was shining, and I soaked up a month's worth of vitamin D while we ate on the beach.

My skin really hates the sun, and this evening feels slightly angry and sore even though I was covered everywhere with sunscreen. It's like my little skinules, underneath the protective blanket of sunscreen, are like "WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID!!!" And boy did I. We walked around the whole pond and it looked and smelled and felt fantastic. Spring was popping out of everywhere. My collarbone and hairline are definitely pinker than usual.

I'm wondering if this yoga journey is going to hinder my transition into moving to Rochester, or help it along. I can't wait, and I can feel myself moving toward The Move faster than it's actually coming toward me, so it's nice to have the groundedness of a little bit of routine to help stabilize things.

Month of Yoga, Episode One

Today I did something that I've totally been meaning to do for a long time, and totally can't afford: I bought an unlimited pass for a month to the yoga studio a couple doors down from my apartment. I figure I'll only be living here for a couple more months, and it's a great opportunity for me to deepen my practice (which has been more than a little lax lately) on a consistent basis. I'm not so good with getting to class every day when I have to, you know, walk a few miles or drive and lose my parking spot. I'm pretty good at talking myself out of going to class when that's the case. So now that I've dropped the money (or, really, put the money on my credit card) I'm excited to see what happens with my body and my mind and my soul after a month of much more frequent and consistent practice than I've been having.

Today I went to a level two class, and I was really scared that I was going to totally suck. With my lax practice and all the Easter candy, I've been feeling really, really down on myself and I was not excited about making a fool out of myself in front of the studio I sort of just committed to. My fears were... um... heightened considerably when I walked in to the yogini in front of me doing a beautiful, unsupported handstand. I had to stick myself into a child's pose to keep from running out the door.

But one of the things I really like about yoga is that it's a fear thing. Everything about yoga is something that I used to be afraid of: forward folds, inversions, wearing tight clothes... every class is an opportunity to overcome a fear of mine, and same goes for every time I teach. So I stuck around, and I'm glad that I did. The experience level of the people in the class allowed for a lot of individual movement (at the end, the instructor just told us to do a few wheels, do a counter-pose, and stick ourselves into the resting pose of our choice). All the benefit of my own practice with all the benefit of having the guidance and support of a class! I also added a couple of new motions and poses to my rep that I think the more advanced women in my Sunday class might find interesting.

Then I ate some Easter candy. But after that I cleaned the bathroom, which I haven't been able to motivate myself to do for a whole week. Can't win them all, but I forgave myself for the sweets... I feel great right now, and think I might actually hit two classes tomorrow: one taught by my yogini goddess friend, and one at my new temporarily-home studio.

Today I took the train downtown and took a hip-hop yoga class at Back Bay Yoga. I didn't know the teacher and had no idea what to expect other than hopefully some good tunes. I love rap, so I figured the combo of the music and the BBY vibe would help me to really push myself.

I think the point I knew I was in trouble was when a woman with very cute and very short yoga shorts walked into the room, set up her mat right by the front, and popped right into a forearm balance. I've been very blessed with hips that open fairly easily and generally problem-free shoulders, but arm balances just aren't my strong suit. So far, anyway.

So the first song was "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice, and I was like, fail. This class is gonna suck. And I laughed for the whole first song because that song is so terrible, but then she started playing Dre and Rhianna, and then the sequences started happening, and boy were there sequences. Left leg back in a lunge, pop forward into half-moon, reach back and grab your left foot, push your foot into your hand and open your shoulder, bring your foot forward into a standing pigeon without touching it down, bring your hands up to heart's center, twist toward the right and set your elbow into the arch of your foot, grab your foot and set it at tree pose, lift up, take reverse namaste and bend backward, exhale forward into a standing split, shoot your left leg back into lunge, take a vinyasa, repeat on the left side. And that was just a warmup.

The way the music was used seemed like a distraction for the most part. I could barely hear the teacher and had to watch the front rows for the next poses. But, the teacher had us do a simple surya namaskar flow for an entire song, and that was where I felt like the music was awesome.

The advanced poses were intense. There was an option to take crow four or five separate times, plus about four variations of crow. There were options to take headstands, handstands, and other arm balances. I was in standing split like ten times. This was a much more advanced practice than I am used to.

And I kind of loved it.

I dunno. I haven't taken a class that kicked my butt that much in a long time, and the challenge of it reminded me that I have a long way to go with my asana practice, and a lot more poses to explore. I think I'm gonna go back next week.

I feel like every time I write something in this blog, it needs to be some big life realization or lesson that I've learned or epiphany that I've had or light bulb that was burned out but magically re-lit itself. I'm re-reading my entries and getting tired of listening to myself. I'm not like that! Maybe it's just me, but I'm looking at this blog and seeing somebody who is obsessed with finding a lesson or meaning in everything when maybe she should just be focusing on the present. Not that this is this entry's big realization or lesson, but I'm gonna give it a shot for a few entries and see how I feel.

The weather today was gorgeous, really for the first time this spring. I love breaking out the flip-flops. I meant to go to a class at Prana after I babysat, but I got done in that annoying time where I was just five minutes too late for the 6:00 class, and an hour and a half early for the 7:30. So I came home and chopped up a bunch of greens and am in the process of making dinner. I put walnuts in my rice. Will let you know if it's gross.

Eating habits are in massive flux. I'll eat brown rice and greens and then chase it with Easter candy... not the best thing ever. I'm trying to cut out that last part, but I'm feeling like the only way to get it gone is to not buy the stuff. At all. So no more grocery shopping when I'm hungry.

And as far as big spiritual realizations... no huge ones, except that I'm still holding onto bad habits from the dead relationship (hey, that's pretty good. I feel like I'll call it that from now on), and I feel like I've got my fingers wrapped around them like they're life preservers. I'm worried that if I don't let them go (and letting go is one of the things I do least well... I'm great at holding on, and remembering, and making histories, and writing things down, and holding grudges, but I'm terrible at letting go) they're going to affect my current awesome life. Any pointers?

Crunchy Living

There's something about being in control of my eating that makes me feel in control of my whole life. I don't think it's an unhealthy thing, at least not in the way it seems to be working for me- but when I eat pizza and tons for cheese and beer and crap, I feel like everything is sort of spiraling out of control in a way. If I can't even control what my hand feeds to my face, how am I supposed to control the rest of my body? How am I supposed to look good, or sleep well, or manage my time with anything resembling responsibility?

So I was like, hello kale.

I'm on a serious health food kick lately, and for once, I'm doing it to be healthy and not to drop 16,000 lbs. Despite my periodical and insistent cravings for chocolate (which I've decided I can't do anything about, so I'm just going to eat nice chocolate in small quantities), I'm eating a lot of brown rice, healthy oils, and leafy greens. Broccoli has kind of always been one of my favorites, but I'm getting really into steamed kale too. And lots of garlic.

It took about three days of this before I started to feel less like a sickie on the road to recovery from strep throat and more like Superwoman. Or, as I'm going to say in France this summer (presumably when people ask me what prompted me to visit), je voudrais m'eloigner des Cheez-its. I would like to distance myself from Cheez-its. Heck oui.