Practice Practice

Wah wah. I woke up with a lot of stiffness on the right side of my neck. I was gonna go do some cardio, but I thought better of it. I figured running, thinking about not hurting my neck further would just exacerbate the problem, whereas yoga might alleviate it!

I dropped to the mat found a video from Tara Stiles on relieving neck tension. I did it, and I felt mildly better. Then I thought, I have 3 big papers due on top of finals, maybe this is stress tension. So I did a stress relieving sequence. It didn't relieve the tension in my neck, but it did make me feel better overall :) This might just be one of those days that I have to suck it up and wait for it to get better. Meh. I did a lot of hanging poses like standing forward bend, dropping my head so it could hang. Nuttin like muttin.

On a brighter note, I practiced headstand yesterday and I hardly had to do any leg pumping to get myself up. That was a confidence booster. I was listening to some music, so I told myself I'd stay up for the length of the song. I had a blanket under my head as a cushion, I took deep breaths, but I didn't feel comfortable enough to stay up for 3:05, so I came down just under 3 minutes. Some progress is progress, though. Besides, I'm not trying to hold a world record for longest wall-headstand, haha.

Today is our last practice together! :( *cue "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" by Green Day*

 <totally forgot about teaching my cat yoga, but he looks a lot like this, so...close enough?

The Practice

I really enjoyed class on Tuesday. I love that our class, as a collective, knows enough now to suggest poses and we can have fun with it. Although, I woke up with a really sore lower back today. I'm not sure if that's from the poses we did or what...I ran on Tuesday for the first time in awhile. Perhaps it was a combination of the two of those. Nevertheless, I've done some twists and standing forward bends. Those have helped alleviate some of the tension. I think the biggest relief will come from laying down. It's been a long day; this is a big week what with papers and projects wrapping up before Thanksgiving.

My hips are also really tight. This is a constant problem. I should just sit in Baddha Konasana all the time...Alright, now I'm actually sitting in the pose, and I do feel better :)

With regards to my pose challenge, I opened up Light on Yoga randomly and found Vrksasana One (tree pose)! This is ironic because this was the pose I chose on Tuesday, haha.

I'm really excited to go home for Thanksgiving, especially because I get to see my cat. In case you start judging me for being a crazy cat lady, I've had my cat since I was 11. He's my best furry friend. I wish I could teach him yoga. He'd be so good at it, haha. When he yawns, he extends his arms forward and moves back on his haunches. I guess you could call that child pose.

This is all over the place. Sorry, I have a hard time talking about one thing for an extended period of time. I found something cool and noteworthy in the appendix of LOY: there are week long asana courses, guided bits on pranyama, and asanas for various ailments! Neat stuff :) Sadly nothing on teleportation or mind reading, Dr. Schultz.

Waking Parts 2.4-4.4

As a person who seeks to avoid pain in her everyday life, I had a hard time working my way though Waking. It is very well written, and hard to put down because it is so readable. Yet, it was necessary for me to put it down because I felt the sadness from the obstacles Young Matt faced unrelenting. He got into a terrible accident, lost his brother and sister, woke up from a coma to find out he was paralyzed, went through many, many surgeries, and poor treatment from medical professionals, and suffered so much loss.

Much of Matt's loss, as a result of the accident, happened in the hospital. He had to give up his sense of privacy since he was unable to care for himself. Also, since he had visitors and hospital staff checking in on him at all hours. Being resigned to a hospital bed for so long, and because of his injuries, he lost his athleticism. That coupled with his ornery digestive system put him at a mere 80 pounds. He was unable to live his normal life. As the younger brother of an accomplished athlete, Matt dreamed of following in his brother's footsteps. Unfortunately, his paralysis made that impossible, to his and Matt's dismay. The paralysis also nullified his abdominal muscles. He nearly got rid of his legs, deeming them unnecessary, but they would prove to be helpful with balance. Possibly, most importantly, he lost the connection between his mind and body. Before Matt underwent his second body cast, an awfully painful experience, his mom suggested that he step outside of his mind. Matt tried this and it worked for him. Subsequently, he used this technique to escape the pain and boredom that were constantly bombarding him in the hospital. Leaving his mind, however, proved to lead to anger and self-hatred.

Brief tangent: There is a blogger I followed on Tumblr, until she deleted her page :( Anyway, she was a broken individual in the sense that she had been mentally and physically abused by many men in her life when she was younger. She overcame an eating disorder and this past abuse to become an inspirational figure to me and to many. She lifted weights and worked out regularly, but had an unabashedly wild love affair with junk food. She explained that she learned to curb her cravings, from binging daily, to having Sour Patch Kids as often as she wanted, but in moderation (a.k.a. not the whole bag). I really admired this girl because she had serious guns (love biceps) and abs. She would laugh (I presume. I would read between the lines), writing about how many people would comment on her "amazing six pack," when really it was a come-and-go sort of thing. She explained it's extremely hard to get and maintain abs like that. Some people are just not geared for that genetically. Then she said something that stuck with me, "you may not ever have abs, but you can always have biceps." Arms are much easier to tone than abs. I am a testimony to that. Though my biceps are small, they are pretty toned, and they got that way after I worked up to 15-30 pushups a day for a few weeks. I thought about all of this fondly as Matt almost self-deprecatingly compares himself to Dwight the thrill-seeker with "ham hock" arms.

I'm not sure what I was expecting to read about Matt's experience with yoga, but I wasn't expecting it to be so relatable. He wrote about his first experience practicing yoga with Jo almost as something mystical. I felt so moved when he related to Jo that the last time he had spread his legs wide like that was before the accident. (His life has two markers of time: birth and pre-/post-accident). Nevertheless, Matt felt the powerful charges the body releases during the yoga practice. Since, in yoga, we are moving in ways differently than we're used to, our body parts get warm and excited by their newfound significance. This is especially true in the case of Matt's legs, having been resigned to a wheelchair for twelve years. I was just surprised as he was that, as someone who tried so hard to sever his mind-body connection, was so quickly able to feel so much. He benefited from the practice of yoga immediately :)

Cycling back a little bit, Matt explained how awkward it was for him 1. pulling in to yoga class after class and 2. doing it in a wheelchair. As he waited, he noticed the students lingering afterward, "with a shapeless need." That's absolutely right! Once our class gets going, we scramble out the door, but after Dr. Schultz says her closing blessing, we're all sitting in a blissful, haze. The line about "gratitude toward the people you've had the opportunity to practice with" often makes me want to shout, "we did it y'all!!!" but shouting is generally socially unacceptable in classrooms and it would throw off our yogic groove, so I just happily think that to myself. It is amazing, though, the bond that people build from exercising together. My best friend and I didn't become best friends until we started running together on the weekends. Although, I feel a connection toward the people in my weight training class, but it's not the same as in BIC yoga + philosophy. I'm sure that is partly because I at least knew of everyone in the latter, and knew no one in the former. The people who are closest in my weight training class are those who train together in the gym. The rest of us are just mod podge. Everyone runs out the door after class, with their workout buddy. There is no peaceful lingering or real class unity, which is fine. To me, it makes our yoga class feel even more special.

Back to Matt, the chapter "Body Memories" really captured my attention. I have heard of people having mental flashbacks before, but never physical ones. Sanford explained that it wasn't until he had the surgery to remove the rods that he knew how his body felt as it went through the accident (since he had no memory of these events). I can't imagine how terrifying that surgery was for everyone involved. The agitated doctor probably didn't know it was "phantom" pain that led Matt to act so spastically during the surgery, at least not at first. And Matt had no idea what had happened until after he woke up. How disorienting, reliving a violent accident again and again according to circumstances beyond your control? Matt came to the realization that his body was pressing on forward in all of those times when he mentally checked out. That is pretty amazing to think about...God has made our bodies to do serious battle. They can handle a lot. Matt's sure did. "My body did not ask for the rupture that it experienced, but it somehow survived it." It was his mind that was a little too weak. "I did not mean to take [my body] for granted" (Chapter 13). He realized consequences of letting his mind leave his body.

Near the end of the book, Sanford says, "my life has taught me that there is a wealth of strength within us; there is nothing we cannot handle." The events of his life have definitely made him a witness to that truth. I think anyone who reads Waking will be encouraged to believe it, too.

The Practice

I've been sick all of this week, so my practice is at a standstill. I have a post nasal drip, a runny nose, and a cough. Just sitting and reading is a bother. I really want to practice my headstand, but putting any more pressure on my head right now seems like a bad idea.

Thankfully, all is not lost. Since the Baddha Konasana Challenge started last week, I have been taking five minutes everyday to practice the pose, as suggested by Dr. Schultz. I am extremely close to reaching that goal, as predicted by Dr. Schultz. I need to pick a new pose for the week...hmm...

Lately, I've been worrying a lot about my future, group projects, final papers, the fact that finals are in less than a month...all that to say, I've been carrying a lot of tension in my neck and upper body, so I have been doing big toe pose a lot (and it's variation with the hands under the feet).

I would really like to get in the habit of doing yoga for a little bit every day as a restorative practice. Since starting college, I have gotten into the habit of taking a daily nap for 30 minutes every day. A friend recently challenged me to spend two of those 30 minutes sessions on other things that bring me joy. The first things I thought of were things that I think I should do, like craft and blog, but yoga slipped past me. I'm definitely going to give my sick self some nap time soon, but after that, I'm gonna get my yoga on...even if it's just practicing Baddha Konasana.

Waking 1.4

I feel really deceived by Matthew Sanford. The book started off gently enough, with him sliding out of bed to   practice pranayama. I thought, oh, it's unfortunate that he is paralyzed, but look what he can do. Yay! When suddenly, I get thrown into the hospital room when he finds out about his paralysis. Well, I guess that's good authorship because I'm only feeling a small fraction of what he felt.

At this point, I'm only in the fourth chapter of the book, but he does an excellent job with character development. I feel as though I know his family personally. I have a lot of compassion for them and I hardly know what to do with it, as this is a book, and I can't exactly ship casserole or cake to this grieving family in their past state...I am so proud of them all. Laura Kathleen's boyfriend was so consistent and intentional about sticking around when I'm sure it was devastatingly hard looking into the eyes of his beloved's family members, seeing her through them. Perhaps that also made it easier? Matt's mom, Paula was incredibly strong, losing almost half of her family, fighting for her son, and keeping everyone grounded. And, of course, Matt is a champ. It broke my heart reading that he said to his first girlfriend he would rather die than live the rest of his life in a wheelchair. I thought, what a tactless thing to say! and then, bless his heart for bravely enduring the pain of the accident and learning to live life with limited mobility.

Reading Waking is reminding me of what unfortunate places hospitals can be...Sanford talks about the awful food, and what a joy it was when he received a room with a television. Good grief! I've been fortunate enough to not spend a lot of time in hospitals in my life thus far. It seems to me that in a place with so much suffering, people should be living luxuriously! Maybe this is me being happy-go-lucky, but it makes sense. If I'm sitting upright for days in recovery, I'd like some current magazines and a foot massage. Perhaps people with money arrange that kind of stuff themselves...Anyway, if hospitals had stuff like that I suppose no one would want to leave, and that'd be a problem for the new batch of hurt people.

The part of Waking that I read most recently was Sanford's family's prophecies about the accident. Wow. These are interesting to read. It's amazing, first of all, that they remembered all of that, and secondly how applicable they were to the accident! I wonder how many times we miss things like this in our own lives. How could they have known beforehand, though? It's not as if they could have escaped the accident with those clues. It seems to have brought them closure, and that's what is most important.

Gita 17-18

As I read about renunciation, I thought about how in Christianity, we say that you ought to give (tithe), and do nice things for others without expecting a reward. This chapter went further to say that one should not do things expecting a reward, but also avoid worrying about the outcome. Many a time I have done the opposite: I avoid things I think will be painful or excessively hard. I have been learning to get over this in college, but I have grown to love doing things well so much so that I stick to the same old things I know I can do well out of fear of failure or rejection. I didn't play sports in high school or do intramurals here because I hated the idea of letting my team down by performing poorly. I'm in Latin IV this semester, and I feel extremely uncomfortable in that class. Many of my classmates are Classics majors or are for whatever reason quite well-versed in Latin, whereas I spend my time on the homework with my Latin dictionary glued to my hand. Thankfully, the class is more about analyzing literature and expounding on it than parsing and identifying grammatical things so I enjoy it a lot more than Latin I & II. Even more thankfully, people keep reminding me that doing my best is what is most important. I want to be like a sattvic worker, who is "free from egotism and selfish attachments, full of enthusiasm and fortitude in success and failure alike." 18.26-27

The Practice

I loved that our class today was like yoga's greatest hits...or freestyle yoga if you will :) We all shared our favorite pose, and it was interesting to see what people chose. It was nice to see some poses we used to do come back again. There were a few poses that I didn't want to see come back, but thankfully, those were temporary...We did shoulder stand today. Ever since I learned about that pose in yoga last semester, I have pulled it out at least weekly, plowing and standing on my shoulders without a care. Little did I know, that my footloose and carefree attitude could have wrecked my neck! Now I know better :D

I don't really have anything structured to say...
-Squeezing my back muscles helps me get into my downward dog further.
-I'm still having a lot of trouble with the wheel.
-Legs up the wall never feels particularly great for me. Maybe I should start putting a blanket under my back or something.

Hmm. I just started reading my friends' (classmates') blogs for inspiration because I don't know what else to say about ze practice. I made a goal last year to do the splits fully. I can get pretty close to the ground, but I want more! I need to get back to working on that daily. Ah-ha! I think I'll start trying a new pose from Light on Yoga/day. If that proves to be too challenging, I'll make it a pose a week, depending on the difficulty of the pose. Oh, I'm so excited! This week I'll start with the challenge posed by Dr. Schultz: progressing toward Baddha Konasana Three (and splits).