Old Chick on the Block
On the way to practice this morning I blared Linkin Park (thanks to Cameron I know who Linkin Park is and I dig them. Good fast loud music always gets me in the mood to practice and I was looking forward to the heat in the room given that second series went first... and boy was it hot. I setup in the front of the room... I like to have my breathing room, quite frankly. Tiffany was next to me and the room was quite crowded. Practice was going fine... pretty even and meditative... as we began Garbha Pindasana Tim said "Ready for some comic relief?" Garbha Pindasana is not hard for me and I can get my left hand on my chin no problem... the right hand is not as pretty but can touch the chin. I can't roll with my hands on my forehead as it pulls too much through the pec muscle but rolling is no problem and I love kukkutasana... it's one of my favorite first series poses. I have no problem keeping my knees at elbow height, rolling up into it, holding it. I don't "feel" it anywhere... it doesn't even appear to require bandhas? So I did my rolls, rolled up in kukkutasana, was just about to come down when I heard Tiffany exclaim "I got it! I got it!" in an apparent attempt to let the assistant today know she didn't need his help... so it was out of the corner of my eye that I saw her roll up and I thought "she's WAY over her knees" and then SPLAT... she literally landed on her head. I think I'm the one that gasped... it looked and sounded like it hurt like hell. Pretty much everyone started laughing but Tiffany was a good sport about it and Tim didn't appear to catch it at all. It was hard to maintain composure for awhile. I twisted my ankle or something in Setu Bandhasana today and the first few backbends felt horrid. When we were on the last one, I knew Tim was on the other side of the room, Jason was helping Tiffany grab her ankles so I asked OKRGR to come help me... he told me that he wasn't really helping and that I have 1/2 inch more to get over my knees. Who knew a 1/2 inch could be so freakin' hard!!!! In other blog worthy news, I actually held my headstand to the count of 25 today. Forget ardha sirsasana for me (too much pull through my chest) but I was quite happy to get to 25, first time since July. I also was able to life in utlputhi for I think it was 5-7 breaths. I was in a lot of pain but trying to push through it. I came down, held myself together and then pushed up again for a couple breaths. I'm pretty impressed that I can lift at all, it does still hurt but, at some point, the pects have to get built up again.
I had a bit of a blurb here about blogging, commenting, censorship, sandboxes, pettiness, cattiness and having an open heart. In the end, as my blog passes into it's 5th year... one of the early lessons I learned, one of the earliest committments I ever made was that I would only ever post and hear what people responded to me with an open heart... for it is only with an open heart that we can grow. If we throw away the voice of someone who doesn't like us, doesn't agree with us or doesn't say what we want to hear, we miss the most valuable voice of all... I hope I can maintain that through this next year. I hope I can continue to allow this blog to be a place to explore and document... it's wild to be able to go back and read about things and feelings you have forgotten... in fact, it's downright awesome.
Tomorrow is back to work. This whole weekend thing is out of control. There's just too much to do and too little time to do it. Who decided on a 5 day work week anyway? By the way, I've pleasantly maintained my aversion to eating meat. I have been eating some shrimp, in avocado sushi rolls from Jimbos. I feel so great. I really need, however, to get back to inventive vegetarian cooking. I seem to be drawing a blank at meal planning.
Tomorrow, Mysore.
Comments
Four day work weeks, that's what I'm talking about.
The perfect amount for the working mother.
Posted by: Susan | January 8, 2006 10:53 PM
Crap, I hope this doesn't post five times...Hahahaha I still crack up thinking about it - my head aches a little still too. Now I'm scared shitless to do kukkutasana, a little too much force, I'll lay off tomorrow for sure. See you early tomorrow? Ugh. Monday.
Posted by: Tiffany | January 8, 2006 10:57 PM
You probably gave yourself a concussion... you hit REALLY hard actually. We can work on it tomorrow if we can stay in synch. I don't think you have to roll with such force, it's the same feeling as Ubhaya Padagusthasana.. use your bandha to get up... you have them 'cause you can do all the backbendy stuff.
Posted by: Julie | January 8, 2006 11:02 PM
Hi Julie,
I think maybe you might have been thinking of me, at least in part, in what you wrote today about blogging. I want you to know I don't throw away anything anyone writes to me, even if it doesn't make it onto my blog. I am sure that is the case with you as well. You wrote something very wise and insightful to me, and I didn't put it on my blog because I was concerned that it would lead to a flurry of far less wise and insightful comments. As you said (and forgive me for paraphrasing...), sometimes those who are in most need of our compassion are those who seem the least. Well, that can go both ways, by which I mean, we ALL deserve compassion. Those who throw stones, may have had stones thrown at them, and perhaps those people threw stones first. Or maybe not. Basically, we don't know much about anyone else, even our friends, and sometimes the best thing we can do is just treat people with compassion and the understanding is that all anyone really wants is to be happy and feel fulfilled. ALL of us. Each of us sometimes misses the mark. It doesn't make us bad. It makes us real.
Lauren
Posted by: YogaChickie | January 8, 2006 11:03 PM
Hi Lauren,
I wrote that partly thinking of the situation which has appeared at EZBoard and on your blog and in part because a long time Internet-friend of mine, apparently, recently left a long-time haunt due to something similar and I just read about it today and realized she removed commenting from her blog altogether (which H, if you are reading, I completely understand it just got me thinking about, well, you know, all the stuff from *before*). I've found that whenver something is hitting me over the head like that (meaning I'm seeing the same basic issue in multiple places), it's something I should stop and thing about. It got me thinking about the history of my blog and all the journeys it has taken me on (not all of it pretty).
I'm not sure I understood your comment here entirely which is okay. My comment to your blog was with the best intentions whether you post it or not and, what I meant by it was, essentially, it doesn't matter who threw the first stone... but I'm assuming you got that.
Posted by: Julie | January 8, 2006 11:12 PM
I totally got that, and you are totally right. I know that the recent ezboard stuff wasn't me at my finest, regardless of whatever anyone else did or said first (or last, for that matter). As for my blog, well, I need to think on that a bit more as it is not quite as public of a forum as ezboard - it's a more appropriate place for me to vent my feelings about whatever. That said, I have to acknowledge that there is a readership and maybe I have a responsibility to reign myself in when my vrittis are spinning. I don't know...like I said, I need to think on it a bit.
Best to you....
Lauren
Posted by: YogaChickie | January 9, 2006 12:12 AM
"for it is only with an open heart that we can grow. If we throw away the voice of someone who doesn't like us, doesn't agree with us or doesn't say what we want to hear, we miss the most valuable voice of all... "
Amen... open hearts and open minds, something the world seems to be in shorter supply of late.
JB
Posted by: ciodude | January 9, 2006 6:42 AM
i think we should lobby congress for 5 day weekends and 2 day work weeks :-)
Posted by: rew | January 9, 2006 8:16 AM
Way cool, your blog is also Treo Blazer compatible!
JB
Posted by: ciodude | January 9, 2006 5:36 PM
What kind of uber nerd do you think I am... of course I can view it in my Treo!
Posted by: Julie | January 9, 2006 5:42 PM