Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Tout Doucement

Back from Santa Fe tonight with a tan on my face and a horse shoe in my bag. Tonight marks the first night of my summer adventures away from the blue house. Only a few more weeks before California and the yoga team reunion at Lulubandha's.

In Santa Fe I took a Bikram class at the College of India. Lots of egos balancing atop a stinky brown carpet in a poorly lit room. I was practicing between two teachers at the studio, and their practices were distracting and disheartening. I don't know that much about it, but it seemed as though the class was more concerned with looks/ego than things like, I don't know, safety and reason.

Here's something: I don't really understand the "lock your knee" thing. The woman teaching kept yelling that, "lock your knee, lock your knee, last chance to LOCK your KNEE!". How does feeling as though your leg is about to snap in half a good thing? I ignored her and worked on shifting my calf muscles the way Laura K. showed me. I don't know how important the knee locking thing is--I don't know that much about it, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Maybe Bikram yoga isn't really for me. I kind of knew this already, but I guess it's good to confirm. I like being free to wiggle my fingers around, or stick my tongue out in the mirror, or hang out in downward dog or child's pose if I want. Maybe this makes me undisciplined. Richii Jai and Cara would say this is 'owning your yoga'.

I have not been owning my yoga. I haven't even been to yoga since I got back from Santa Fe Friday night. Moving out of my house has a lot do with it, but also I just don't want to. I don't know why. I don't feel good, and I'm eating sugary food that makes me feel bad. That same feeling I get when I wake up at 7:50 for an 8:00 class and think well, I've already blown it and roll over to sleep again. I know I should just go. I'll feel better, I always do. Is this normal, this resistance? Part of me hopes the TT will cure this somehow so I'll come back to be like Richii, who just looks at me like so what when I'm tired and who has enough energy at 6am to last 48 hours. Everyone says 90% of something is showing up to it, and if everyone says it, it must be true. How do I get beyond my own stubbornness? I feel like sometimes I'm just waiting to wake up as SuperShinyStarYoginiSarah, even though I'm still afraid of going to intermediate classes, I'm still afraid of going upside down, and I haven't been to a class in four days. Is it laziness, fear, lameness?

It rained and snowed this morning. Things are late this season, not metaphorically but actually. I slept in the apartment above Alice and Bill's house last night, curled into a ball of legs and arms beneath a quilt. I didn't leave the studio until after 10 last night and blamed my exhaustion/laziness on the weather. Listening to the rain made me wish for a moment for my old room and my record player, to dance alone around the apartment listening to Motown records like summers past. It feels uncomfortable at times to be without a home, and in the past few days I've had to remind myself over and over that I can't just go home. It's forcing me to 'show up' to things when I really don't want to, to be with people when I really want to be alone. And sometimes I want to be alone for pretty lame reasons, like I don't like my hair, or I want to watch eighteen episodes of "Heroes" in a row while eating beans from a can. There's nothing that wrong with those things, I suppose, but I've come to rely on them as escapes. A friend and I were talking about relationships the other night, regarding the testiness of others. I said quite breezily Oh I don't think I get testy and two seconds later realized I'm able to say that because there is no one testing me. What is all this crap I'm writing about not wanting to go to yoga? Being as testy and tempermental as a little baby. As Audrey would say, u u u u g g g g g h h h h !

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