365 Days of Yoga - Day 3

Class again with Stacey today. After last night's beauty class I couldn't resist spending some more quality time with her and her loveliness.

Again the room was packed, but today I ended up in the very very back of the room, making friends with the bag full of shelves and the teacher i-pod station. Happily, I find that I don't get too frustrated any more with the really packed houses. It's easy to feel like everybody is all over your "space", but after awhile I think I've come to realize that the really full classes can be the juiciest, and that ultimately you find your way around everyone else's blankets and limbs.

I've been having this thing going on with my right hamstring (it's interesting to watch injuries move around...once it was my right shoulder, then my left hip, now this hamstring...) and for awhile I was barely able to straighten my leg because of that. I asked a few teachers about it and they said that I'd probably just torn some of the muscles in there and the advice (as with all yoga injuries it seems) was just to back off in the poses where it is painful.

Argh! Says my ego. Back off? Back off--but--that's so--!! Hard. Yes, exactly. It is very very hard for me to ease off and so I am communicating the lesson to myself the best way I possibly can: via torn muscles and painful joints. Chill. Back off. Take it easy. I'm going to admit something a tiny bit embarrassing which is: I think that there are some poses that I can "do"...that I can't really do. I happen to be blessed with a strong body and I think I use that strength to make the shape of the pose even when I can't really live inside of it. If that makes any sense. In my own defense (oh, blast you, anonymous voice of repudiation!!) I am getting a lot better at this, and am trying to notice more and more when and where I am doing it, and trying to...not do it so much. Because of this, I have to say, I am growing quite fond of my little hamstring injury. I am rediscovering all these forward bends that I was paying no attention to whatsoever and for the first time I am gettin a real benefit from them. Instead of just feeling proud of myself for getting my forehead to my shins or whatever I was trying for, I'm only going to the place that feels genuinely comfortable for my throbbing right leg (which means my head is an embarrassing distance from my legs. Seriously. You could drive a truck through there)--and, surprise sur-freaking-prise, that place is actually where my whole body can open up. Now it's not just about my flexible back--I can feel the backs of my legs, my neck, behind my heart--all of it melting and opening up in the forward bends. And, now it feels like I have someplace to GO.

If only I could start to look the "injuries" in the rest of my life this way. Not as things which need to be fixed or as limitations, but as gentle reminders as to where I am not paying attention, where I am pushing too hard or trying to be somewhere I just may not be quite ready to go yet.