I've been niggling over a decision for awhile now. I knew I had choices and I knew that I could simply take the easy path, the one of least resistance and the one in which I knew would have been a disaster to take.

I was never a weak woman. I was never a woman who, when faced with a problem that I know next to nothing about, to simply throw up my hands and give up. Not that I'm any of those things now... but sometimes it helps to remind oneself of what one knows about themselves. I have been reading this interesting book called The Female Brain. It has many interesting qualities to it. I loved reading about the teenage brain, the brain in mating mode, monogamy and the female brain, our brain at work. I highly recommend it. In reading about the chemical reactions (such as that of rejection which apparently triggers the same circuits in the brain as physical pain) I realized just how important working the kinks out in the body is.

Tonight's practice I dedicated to facing down Kapotasana. Just to be clear from the get go... I didn't actually do kapotasana. The single thought going through my brain when I think about second series and/or backbending is "Wow, I really don't want to feel that. I don't want to feel it in my body or my soul." In an effort not to let the beast become bigger than reality, I did only Surya's, standing and second series up to Kapotasana. I cried physically and emotionally when I got to Pasasana. First series twists feel fine.. Pasasana feels like a train has trapped my torso beneath it's wheels (yes, I realize with practice, this too shall pass). I did a ton of Ustrasana... finding the spine and feeling the heart opening of backbending... getting out of the core axis of the sacrum and finding the root lock. I also did a lovely set of backbends that felt like I was literally lifting into the sky with a string pulling the front of my body up and up.

Sometimes the only way out is in.

Tomorrow at 8:30 the game starts for real. But, for tonight, dinner with a friend at Chez Gaudy in Capitol Hill.

Hari Hari Boom Boom