Tales from the Kvetchy Side
Well, like I said, it's been a looooooong week, and it is still going. Spent four hours in Mt Kisco today, the nearest town that can boast a Stapes, a Target and a Dunkin Donuts, trying out a martial arts dojo with Addy, sorting through school supplies, while the husband and Brian stayed home entertaining yet another horde of service providers, including the outgoing gardener who showed up today and started reseeding patches of my lawn and then, inexpocably, at least insofar as I am concerned, covering them up with thatch, a potential incoming gardener who specializes (as do all gardeners I am interviewing now) in organic and habitat-driven landscaping (meaning planting only what grows indigenously, only what the deer won't eat and only what is highly drought resistant), our floors guy (since we decided, suddenly, without advance planning, to re-redo our floors because they weren't shiny enough....
Blah blah blah.
And I wonder why I can't stand blogging anymore. I bore myself to tears. I know why I like that show Mad Men: I AM a 1950's housewife. I get excited by the discovery of distilled white vinegar as an all-purpose cleaner. I get agitated if my plans make it impossible for me to do my whites on Thursday, which is the day I designated for that.
But here is the dirty little secret that I can't even stand admitting to myself: I am finding yoga to be incredibly annoying.
Not the physical aspect of it. No. That part is fine, although a bit boring because there is literally nothing that challenges me in Primary Series anymore, yet my backbends are so sucky that even if I ever succeed in properly standing up from a backbend, it seems almost ridiculous to imagine ever getting past Kapotasana. Feet to hands! Hahaha! I just can't see it.
Pasasana is easy. Much easier than mari c was when I was learning it. That is not to say that I can do it myself without the help of a wall or a strap or another human, as it were. But I am just way more in the vicinity of it than I was when I was learning the Primary Series twists.
A little ennui aside, like I said, it is not the physical aspect of the yoga that is annoying me. Rather, I feel alienated from just about every other aspect. So many blogs have popped up on ashtangi.net, so many discussions of chakras and inner light and feeling overflowing love for strangers because we're all in search of the same thing, blah blah blah, no offense....seriously, no offense...it is just that I am not feeling it.
I have zero desire to squat over a hole in india and call it a toilet. Nor do I have any intention of taking a nice warm bucket shower. All for the privilege of practicing the exact same yoga that I practice here, where I can soak in my jacuzzi beforehand and pee in a toilet that features running water?
More blasphemy: When it comes to the First Family of Ashtanga, I can't say that I feel the love. It's not that I feel anything negative; rather, blasphemous yoga chickie that I am, I feel...nothing. Like the girl in A Chorus Line who couldn't "be an ice cream cone", I'm digging right down to the bottom of my soul and feeling, well, nothing.
Maybe this is just temporary. I hope so, because I don't want to feel nothing. I want to feel the love. I want to think of a backbend as a heart opener, and not just as gymnastics. I want to feel my blocked chakras, and not just my blocked nasal passages. As it is, I feel adrift, rootless. Maybe it's because I have no shala at the moment. Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I need some new meds. Or some more plastic surgery. Kidding about that last one.
Maybe I just need a swift kick in the asana.
YC
7 comments:
I know what you mean. Sometimes I feel the love, and sometimes I don't. I definitely feel it for Guruji. The whole metaphysical deal escapes me much of the time. Oh well. Whatcha gonna do?
And I am so housewifely I make myself sick sometimes.
"No. That part is fine, although a bit boring because there is literally nothing that challenges me in Primary Series anymore"
That's what you tell yourself, but let me ask you: can you jump back and through (yes, with palms flat on the floor) without even scraping your mat? Can you put yourself into a full Supta Kurmasana (feet behind neck)? And yes, can you drop back, stand up, even grab your ankles by yourself? Or look at the back of the room in Mari D?
There is always something to work on in the Primary series. It's ok to want to start Second, but don't fool yourself or try to fool us by saying that you have no challenges. You do, you actually don't want to face them!
Speaking as someone who knows what you are doing because she does it herself more often than she'd like to admit
V.
No one seems to care if I can jump back and through with palms flat and without scraing the mat. It doesn't seem a prerequisite to moving onto Second. And no one seems to care about whether feet are behind the neck, unassisted or not, in Supta K...also not a prerequ for Second.
In any event...even if I am in complete denial, the reality is...I'm still bored...
No, those things are not necessary for moving on to Second. I didn't say that, though. I said that you can still find challenges in Primary. It's about finding the joy in where you are rather than chase something else.
Maybe it's fall, but I was thinking the same thing about blogging--fuck MY BLOG, I thought this morning. Whatever. Hey, backbends don't have to be the thing that dissolves you into enlightened, healing hysterics. It could be anything. And just give yourself the first 3 poses of second and get going. It takes a while to get your feet in kapo, but it could happen. Just start working on 2nd. I really believe that the boredom is all part of it--it's what lets the crazy squirrels reveal themselves. You can be with your squirrels and see what crazy shit they have to say. I am in an improv/hybrid phase of my practice right now, so it's easy for me to give advice. maybe you should just throw the map out and do something different...
oh, and YC, I care if you can't jump back or through with your hands flat because that's just WRONG. You should have flat hands. Now get to work and quit cheating.
I agree with Vanessa... and, from experience, the lesson in primary is to stop trying to attain second. I know it is easier said than done but look for the subtle challenges. Can you really get your foot in the right position and engage your abductors and aductors in Mari A and B. Can you feel the burn in the hip when you do it right vs. when you just do the pose to look right? There are so many subtle places to really do the work in primary, I can't imagine ever being done with primary. I mean, it doesn't challenge me the way Kapotasana does... but I can't imagine getting to Kapotasana without the work in primary either.
I think some people are metaphysical and some people aren't. I was already into all that stuff before I started yoga so the practice of yoga has only helped to understand those things I had already felt affinity to.
It has taken me, mhmmm... two years or more to find the heart opening of backbending. I never understood it either but the process of learning, the letting go of the attachment to "getting your feet" is really where the bliss comes in... if you ask me, that journey is what brings the awareness... the heart opening can be excruciating though so prepare yourself for the inevitable. :)
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