My shoulder is better. (Mostly).
I have been forced to continue to do Chatarunga with my knees down, which has ceased to make me feel dumb, and now makes me feel pretty good: A. because I'm actually learning proper shoulder alignment in that pose (or so I hope) and B. because I am giving my competitive streak a short rest while I *gasp* modify.
All yoga teachers say the same thing--for some people, it's the laying off that is the challenge, not the muscling through. Big Me knows this is true for me. Little Me is sure glad that I'm never going to be some wussy who can't make it through a vinyasa with her knees lifted.
Ha! Says the Universe...we'll just see about that...
Otherwise, things have been great. My practice is expanding, I am trying to slow down more than speed up, and I have even (drum-roll please) started to develop an at-home practice with some real consistency. It's been necessary, as my schedule has been all over the place, folks have been visiting from out of town, and my job-job (I don't want to talk about it) has made it hard to fit in a class on the weekends.
We have an apartment big enough to practice in, and I look forward now to the times I can (or have to) practice at home (mostly), but I continue to run up against the following problems:
1. More often than not, all I want to do is like a million forward-bends and five minutes of standing on my head. And, though I know you're supposed to follow the wisdom of your body in these moments, I can't quite be convinced that this is a balanced practice. Child's pose for 20 minutes, anyone?
2. This is the big one...it is much, much, much, much, much harder for me to keep my mind from wandering all over the place when I practice by myself. There is something about the group environment and the teacher directing the flow of the class that gives me permission to Focus, in a way I can't seem to master when I'm by myself. Sometimes I quit early out of total aggravation because I am so far afield in la-la-land--who knew a yoga practice could actually make someone MORE fretful?
and,
3. If I'm not just being "restorative" (see #1) I am often doing pose after pose after pose, never holding anything for long, just sort of hovering around in one before catapulting myself into the next...a kind of "this is good enough" approach to practice. I would NEVER do this in class! In class I am like a focusing MACHINE! I also blame this (call a spade a spade, Lia) laziness on the absence of a teacher and, well...an audience.
That's right folks...if no one's watching, it doesn't count.
I'm not even going to do the work of extrapolating larger meaning from the above, as I'm sure it's pretty bleeping obvious, but if there was anyone who ever needed to learn to practice on her own, it's me! Right? Gosh golly, my mind wanders and I'm either doing too much or too little, and not doing anything quite well enough since I'm not getting the validation of an adoring crowd...I can't relate THAT to any other areas of my life (ACTOR ACTOR ACTOR ACTOR ACTOR). But, oh, holy bhagavad gita it's hard!
That's all for now...I just saw Julie and Julia last night and have made a vow to myself to blog more regularly. I promise. For real this time. Not like all the other times when I just say that and don't do anything about it.
Stay tuned for my upcoming project: Lia/Julia, wherein I teach Julia Child all of B.K.S Iyengar's "Light on Yoga"!
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