economy of energy
I decided to join an IG challenge that my yoga studio is putting on. Having enjoyed the virtual connections I’ve made in my recent participation in a few of the yoga-based IG challenges, I thought it might be fun to connect with some of the members of my real-life yoga community. By the time I found out about it, I’d already started the LetsGetFlexy challenge, MysoreAsana Challenge, and another daily photo challenge which I like to participate in with the hopes of balancing out my IG page with non-me, non-yoga photographs. I quickly abandoned the MysoreAsana challenge and took on the new BreatheFirst challenge. As the month has worn on, I have found the three is getting to be a little too much. I’m already planning to back off, or take a break all together, next month.
In the meantime, Vrksasana is one of today’s poses of the day. Vrksasana and I have a history together; it’s sort of a love:hate relationship because it requires me to find balance and balance is something I am forever struggling with.
I am not just talking about my asana practice, although anyone who has practiced beside me has seen this first-hand, especially when I move into Vrksasana or Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana. If you are one of these people, I apologize for falling into your physical space and challenging your ability to hold your dristi. Finding balance in life, especially as a single mother, has been a learning process whereby one could say that I have been a slow learner.
In late August I posted a FB status update announcing that I was getting back to work in preparing to teach my asana class and finally get certified to teach yoga. I asked for volunteers to help me find my confidence and the right words to articulate my sequence (which has been laid out for almost a year now). Much to my surprise, a number of volunteers came forward with an overwhelming openness to roll out their mats for my benefit.
Then life’s demands picked up. My son got sick with pneumonia and fell way behind in school. In an effort to support him, I let him off the hook on his chores and stepped up my efforts to support his studies in every way that I possibly could. Although tutoring would be an obvious addition, his football schedule is not conducive to this. I *want* to allow him the time and space to continue the one thing that motivates him to stay up into the wee hours of the night putting in the work. For as much as my own yoga practice serves to keep me whole, I can see that football does the same for him.
At the end of the day, or in the few free hours I have left in the middle of the weekend, the last thing on my mind is teaching. The obvious truth is that I haven’t the time or the energy to expend on other things right now. It’s all about insuring the basic needs of the family (aka work, shopping, & paying bills), supporting my relationships, and attending to my own needs.
In a recent interview, Dave Robson talked about the economy of energy. He said, “There’s no denying that there’s an economy of energy for each person and there’s limits to how much can go out. Of course, I want to do more and more all the time and there’s some people that are amazing that way in that, they can do so much. They seem to do a lot of it really well, but I’m not one of those people.” Like Dave, I am also not one of those people.
I watch my boyfriend stay up late and get up extra early to develop his class playlists and search the internet for more ideas to spice up his class sequences. And I think to myself, “I don’t have that kind of energy to give right now. I just don’t.”
One day, I hope that I will – but that time is not now. Will it be after football season has ended? I don’t know. I really WOULD like to finish what I started – if only to set an example for my boys in not leaving things unfinished.
In the meantime, I will do my best to manage my own “economy of energy” and prioritize (or balance) what-must-be-done with my long list of what-should-be-done’s.
In Memory
If you have experienced a significant loss in your life, you know that grieving is a never-ending process. Your relationship to it changes but it the intensity waxes and wanes forever more. Having seen the how ugly grief can be when one tries to bury it, I try to meet it head on. Honor it even…
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practice, practice, practice
At the beginning of the summer, I had dreams of being able to lift up and float back to chataranga dandasana in the both the surya namaskaras and from the seated poses, float through to seated from adho mukha svanasana, drop back into urdva dandasana and come up on my own, and so much more. Ignorantly, I was sure that my ability to practice consistently through the summer IN the mysore room would allow for this magical growth. Of course, it’s never quite how you figure it in your head. I did a great job of practicing 6 days each week all summer long.
But all is yet to come — at least all that I previously dreamed of.
It’s okay. I am proud of the hard work and dedication that I have put towards my practice. Both strength and flexibility has developed in every part of my body. I’ve built up my endurance and have found neutrality in poses previously causing me panic. In addition, I now feel like I have a path on which to navigate to begin to change areas of my body which I previously thought were unchangeable. For instance, I now feel that I am able to create more awareness of the right side of my body where I previously had very little due to residual effects of an autoimmune response which lead to neuron sheath demyelination that occurred in my early teenage years. Although I do not have any more feeling in my right foot than before, I have gained awareness of the anatomy and alignment upstream of my foot that plays into the positioning of the foot. The awareness of the patterns that need to be broken, regardless of whether I can actually feel that my foot is turning out, creates an important chain of self checking from the foot to pelvis and visa verse. I still have the assistants coming over to straighten my turned out foot and I continue to wobble in my standing balance poses like the earth is quaking below me. I’m working on it.
Establishing a 6 days a week practice routine has benefited me greatly in many ways. When I am unable to complete my morning practice, I miss it all day long. And now that school is back in session, and I am being pulled in more directions, my practice is all the more important. Responsibilities require me to be creative with my time to make it all work.
This morning, for example, I was showered and ready to go by 5:30 am. My son’s alarm does not sound & shake until 6 am. So instead of sitting idle, I began my practice at home. By the time I’d completed both surya namaskaras, his alarm was going off. After making sure that he was awake, I left home. In mysore, I repeated the surys and more easily moved on to the rest of my practice.
Tomorrow is a different story, a different game. It’s my turn to shuttle my son and the other students in our carpool to school. I will have to get on my mat extra early AND move through the sequence without any extra fuss to get in a good practice.
This is just the beginning of the struggles to keep up my practice. My son is already struggling to keep up in a highly academic environment. As the school year intensifies, I will need to find more and more ways to support him. It will be all the more important for me to practice being patient and attentive on the mat and in my role as mother.
And so I practice, practice, practice. I am motivated, for in the end, I know it’s good for me…and my son.
the moment when…
The moment when you surrender to a bit of fear,
finally dropping back into urdhva dhanurasana on your own…
is the moment you realize that you can’t stand up for yourself.
In fact, you don’t even have a clue as to how to begin.
And the moment when you slide down the foam pads to your butt…
is the moment you see your tendency to crumble under pressure.
Ashtanga sure is humbling!
Survival 101: dropping back
I’ve heard that back bending can wake up the emotions — often in a tearful way. To the non-yogi, this whole business of “heart opening” may sound a bit wild minded but I can assure you that the stuff is powerful and real.
Understanding the why is less important than being aware that it just is. This past week, I have resumed my work on dropping back from standing into urdhva dhanurasana then returning to standing. Like in the beginning stages of learning to ride a bike, I am pretty reliant on having an assist in both directions. Although it is still scary, knowing that someone “has your back” lessens the fear factor.
In the mysore room, we have these foam pads which can be stacked against the wall to decrease the distance the yoga practitioner has to drop back onto. Even with an assist AND the foam pads, dropping back is still scary. There is a lot to remember: bandhas, rooting into your legs, keeping your hips forward, lifting your spine up out of your pelvis and your sternum (breastbone) up towards the sky…all while stretching out your arms and letting your body fall backwards. Although I have done it before, on my own even, every attempt feels like the first. Scarier even.
On Tuesday, after being assisted three times, I was left to go it alone. I stood there in front of the blocks, lifting up, and back, up and back, up and back, and…never quite going all the way down to have my hands land on the pads. Each time, I would look for the spot where my hands were to land, not quite see it, and chicken out. After many minutes, my teacher came over and helped me. Then she left again and told me it was time to do it all by myself. Memories of my dad trying to convince me that I could ride a two wheeler without training wheels OR HIM holding the back of my bike came to mind. I smiled. Them came the memory of me falling when, while riding my two-wheeler, I soon discovered that he was no longer running beside me. I’d was doing it, but only because I was sure he had my back (or bike in this case).
It was the same but different. I took the memory and reminded myself that I was riding my bike all by myself. I then told myself that I didn’t need my teacher to hold my back any more than I needed my dad to hold that bike. Of course, I wasn’t 100% sure that this was true but I tried to convince myself. My teacher, from across the room, as well as my fellow mysoreans in the room started whispering, “you can do it.” So… FINALLY I did it! Then, I quickly moved to close my practice. Mission accomplished.
Then came Wednesday… Read More