Jam Session I, Day 2

Didn't have time to blog last night because I went to see The Nutcracker, where I sat half-wishing I could have been a sugar plum fairy or a ballerina so some of this yoga stuff would be a lot easier.

Yesterday we spent most of our 3 hours practicing while Kira led the class and explained some of the reasoning behind the sequencing. It felt GREAT. It's interesting to practice with the thought of eventually teaching in the back of my mind. Suddenly there's more motivation to get things clearer so that I can explain them.

Questions*:

Prana and breath: What is the difference? I blurted out "Is our prana *actually* moving or is it just our imagination?" Sometimes I feel like I get prana; most of the time I feel highly skeptical and confused about it. When I DO think I feel it, I wonder if it's just my imagination. Kira is really great and patient about teaching it; the area where I most feel it's 'real' is in my leg lines, thanks to all the gross muscle action we've been doing there.

Mula Bandha: Again, I don't think I'm exactly getting it. The strength exercise didn't work for me this time. I've done it a few times and it always worked, but unfortunately I started wondering whether it worked due to my expectation that it would. And now I've got the opposite situation. I'm stronger when I'm not engaging mula bandha. I engage it, and my doubt makes my fingers actually weaker than before. Likely, I'm just not engaging it quite right.

Breathing technique: Wow, it is really hard to remember to engage (or attempt to engage) mula bandha AND direct my inhales towards it, but it does feel like a really effective way to protect my low back in poses like low lunge where I tend to crunch it. And then, in standing poses especially, I'm trying to feel energy traveling UP my leg lines and breath traveling DOWN my spine. It takes a lot of focus, which seems good for me.

L & R: For some reason, my brain is not wired to remember the steps of a vinyasa or a salutation. By writing down the entire sequence we did yesterday and then checking it against Kira's posted sequence, I was able to bake the flow more into my head but still. I can just imagine standing in front of a bunch of people and panicking and forgetting a vinyasa or a side. Question: Do you alternate which leg leads in stepping back to the lunge? How long should a sequence be at most?

Planning: Is it ok to completely plan a class out ahead of time? I think I would get so nervous that I would forget everything I know about yoga. What's downward-facing dog again?

Meridians: I've never bothered to try and remember what meridian connects to what organ but maybe I should. I keep meaning to ask, why do we massage those two particular leg lines in class and not the others? I've started to love doing that. I'm one of the slow ones.

Languaging: Committing a word to a feeling, especially when I'm so resistant to feeling most of the time, is hard. Like trying to describe a smell. The words and images I do come up with don't seem appropriate for a yoga class. Like, one time, I felt like a chia seed that had been soaked in water and had that gelatinous substance all around it. Wha? Gross! The words have to not only be accurate to the feeling but they need to be sort of poetic, like when Alana said her muscles felt like they were breathing. Yes! So nice. Unfortunately, my legs felt like juicy chicken drumsticks. Yoga fail! And why do I always feel like food? I need to practice this.

*tomorrow I will post some of what I am learning and what is getting clarified for me.