I'm a person who cherishes her sleep. deeply. So, it is a big deal when I choose to crawl out of a snug cocoon of dreams and warm blankets to drive 20 minutes to stand in a 100 degree room and challenge my body, mind and spirit to a test of strength, flexibility, compassion, patience and pure determination.
It feels good.
I feel powerful showing up for myself this way. This is who I am. I don't know who's been occupying my body for the last little while and shriveling it down to pain and fatigue, but I am back home and cleaning house.
It's taking it's time but, I'm willing to show up.
Little by little I can feel the tiniest of spaces opening up. Little by little the bracing is softening.
It is an unlikely complement to my work with Somatic Experiencing, where everything is about slowing down, titrating, less is more, gentleness, etc.
Bikram is the polar opposite of this. In class, even, the teacher spoke of judging a competition! I didn't know such a thing existed. Yoga as a competitive sport?
At first, I cringed and all my self righteous judgement came in and declared that I was right all along...Bikram yoga is a yoga practice that has strayed from the tenets of a non-competitive, non-judgemental and compassionate form. How can this be yoga? How can this be a good place to be?
Then, I thought of sports, athletics, things like the Olympics and the standards of excellence within physical competitions. I thought of things like diving and swimming, for some reason.
I thought of the idea of competition.
There is something we all accept readily about people engaging in competitive sports. We applaud and marvel and are inspired by the exquisite mileposts that athletes attain. There is something in doing this or witnessing this, that reminds us of possibility. endless possibility. We can be anything we want to be. there's proof. someone has come before us and done something remarkable. We come up close to it when we engage in or watch competitions.
So why not yoga? It is a discipline that tempers muscle, sinew and bone and there is a constant edge to grow to.
Why wouldn't yoga be included in the category of rigorous, athletic discipline?
Then, I think about things like dancing. the arts. Disciplines that are also involved in the rigors of physical perseverance and commitment. A journey of blood, sweat and tears. Not unlike competitive sports but without the gold medals, the live television broadcasts and the merchandise.
But wait, there are dance competitions.....which I also have judgements about....
anyway...it's a topic that's floating around for me. nothing too serious. just some thoughts.
what I realize in this, though, is the opportunity to see where I get so rigid in my thinking and beliefs and how that translates into my body and how it holds me back from participating in my life in a much richer way. So, who cares if one person wants to compete with yoga and another person regards it as a deeply spiritual practice of non-competition?
Maybe it can be both.
Maybe it doesn't matter except within my own experience.
Right now I'm not interested in getting big applause for how awesome I look in standing bow or for how long I can hold standing head to knee pose. There definitely was a time in my life when this mattered to me, whether I was willing to admit it or not.
But, truly, TODAY, and I can really only speak to today...it was just me in the room with me. I was proud of myself for the small distances I've grown since Day 1. I was really okay with the fact that my half locust barely gets off the ground. It was more a provocation of a curiosity of how disorganized, less strong and less integrated my back body is compared to my front. It was an analytical question, at times, asking what is happening in my pelvis with torsion so that my right side is shortened and my left iliac crest rides higher? Why is my right leg support so much stronger and clearer while my left leg wobbles and feels so fuzzy and incoherent? Why is my left hamstring so resistant to lengthening while my right leg is slowly getting longer?
These were the questions. But, it is refreshing to have no self criticism. I'm so grateful that there is no militant dictator inside of me throttling me at every breath. I'm surprisingly quiet in my mind. wow.
This is my yoga.
And,another thing....
today on the way to class I heard a story on NPR about the private citizens who have been participating in self immolation in protest of the Chinese occupation of their country and the murder of their culture.
Somewhere near the beginning of class I thought to dedicate my practice, as is done in Buddhist mediation, to the people of Tibet and to all people who don't have the strength they need to face their particular challenges. As I was challenged with the postures, I would hold them in my mind and say "this is for you. let me be strong and show up and meet this challenge with the best of my strength, effort and heart." It opened everything up.
I have no idea what the postures looked like. But, from the inside, my heart was on and there was a purpose for my moment.
This is my yoga.
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