Kissed by Kapha?

Just throwing this out there, seeing where it lands, seeing if I come back to this someday and say "AHA!". Or perhaps just "HA".

After waking up at 5:30 AM on Saturday to self-practice at 6:30 AM (full Primary), and then teaching a "Power Yoga" class at Boom Fitness (on a one-off basis...good money for an hour's work right in the nabe), and then spending four hours in Westport, Connecticut, looking at houses and wishing that we weren't merely window-shopping for research purposes, and THEN meeting our good friends JB and Eye at the Weston Town Fair, where we spent four hours following our collective five kids around as they ran maniacally from ride to ride, and FINALLY spending the NEXT two hours sitting around the kitchen table of JB and Eye, talking about the joys of country living and about life in general....after all that....I woke up Sunday morning with a throat that felt as if I had swallowed a handful of bees. It felt itchy and thick and it hurt to swallow...

I spent almost all of Sunday in pajamas while The Husband tended to the needs of the kids and even Lewis the Bagle. Later on, close to 6 p.m., I drifted off into a half-sleep that ended with me hearing the haunting Donnie Darko version of "Mad World" looping through my head. I lied there for a bit, humming along with myself, and picturing myself doing some sun salutations...and in moments, I popped out of bed, rolled my mat out on my terrace (which is enclosed with windows, so technically it really is a sunroom), and turned my iPod on....

I don't know what it was about my practice on Sunday. It was close to 7 p.m. when I began and 8:20 when I finished all of Primary. A willing twist and willing shoulders in an ALMOST full expression of Parivritta Parsvakonasana (everything but the heel of my hand was on the floor...which is the deepest expression I can manage so far). Hands to the floor in Prasarita Padotanasana C. No pauses, no dawdling, nice vinyasas. Wrist binds in Mari A and B, getting close to wrists in Mari C, but most importantly, finding that I can get a satisfyingly deep Mari C with a minimum of "ticks" and "tweaks" (to the point where it is becoming my favorite Marichyasana...weird), and easily getting myself fully and satisfyingly deep into Mari D (hands securely locked, but so far no hint of wrists). Two bujapidasanas because I was wearing shorts and getting sweaty, which made me slip off my legs in the final transition to chatturanga on the first one (I opened the window for the second one). And ah....Kurmasana....so lovely - lifting butt and heels off the floor (thank you Kiran for posting about that on the EZ Board in 2002 - else I never would have even thought of it), even if only for a breath. I got myself out of Kurmasana to calm my breath and then got back into it, with a towel at the ready. Somehow, and I know this is really odd, I got deeper into it than I ever have gotten with an assist, with the exception that I obviously wasn't going to get my hands to bind and used a towel instead. But it just felt right. At that point, so sweaty that Garba Pindasana just slipped right into place, I decided to go for it...instead of just lying there stretching and recovering from Supta K, I decided to asana my way into neutralizing my spine....and so finished Primary (it only takes about five to seven minutes, I realized). Backbends were good. Finishing poses were a restorative delight.

I walked away from practice marveling at how good it was, considering how low-energy and yucky I had been feeling all day. And the thought occurred to me: our dominant doshas can shift and change depending on things like illness, weight fluctuations, pregnancy, etc. So, perhaps having had a virus on Sunday, my pitta and vata hardness and heat had given way to my highly dormant kapha softness and ease? I am sure that my next practice will be every bit as pitta (with a little vata thrown in) as usual. But it was delightful to be kissed by kapha for once.....and certainly a silver lining in a day clouded over by feeling like crap.

On a related front, it occurs to me: Brian is WAY dominated by pitta. He is a firey redhead who is petite but lanky and who sweats like NOBODY's business. I have never seen such a sweaty child, to tell you the truth. He is not soft and flexible like Adam, who doesn't get as sweaty and doesn't have the same issues with heat (Brian hates being hot and can often be seen embarassing me by turning up in a t-shirt at the end of a winter day in school, having left his sweater and coat in his cubby). And Brian is fiercely determined, highly competitive and has the best uth-pluti I have ever seen from a child.

On other fronts, here's hoping that Ashtangi.net comes back up soon and that Julie doesn't have too much stress about it.

YC