Sunday, January 24, 2010
You know how sometimes, life lets you in on a little joke and everything at that moment seems light and right? Something inside you chuckles and the yumminess of that moment stays for a little bit?
I had such a lovely little moment in a yoga class this past week. We were a small, strong and familiar group; so we had some room to play. The challenge was put to us: think for a moment of the balancing asana (pose) you dislike most, then take your time in practicing it.
As a rule, I don't dislike any pose or technique. Isn't it true, once we think about it, that "dislike" is often what we label our feelings about something that takes us out of our comfy little headspace? And so it was decided that I would practice ardha chandrasana (balancing half-moon); not because I dislike it, but because the thought of it makes me squirm.
It is an act (yes, an act: because the beauty of it, for me, lies in the process of getting there, not in the final destination) of movement within stillness, a grounding through the feet tempered by a certain vulnerability at the open heart. Well, that sounds beautiful, but to watch me do it is often to witness a comedy of tragic clumsiness.
Left leg lunges forward. Liftoff from the back leg. Unwind sloooowly... reach.... expand... open... open....and cue dying Pac-man music. My standing foot turns in and, in trying to correct it, I set off a physiological chain of events very similar to an earthquake rising up from my one foot balanced (barely) on the floor. The opening up is too much, too vulnerable. My upper hand swoops down to catch me. One more go and...well, it's passable. Blah. Fine. Right side.
And here we go. Lunge. Liftoff. Unwind.... reach.... and there, locating a focal point right through the front windows of the studio, my eyes rest on a sign in the storefront window across the street:
4 comments:
Pure awesomeness Leila. This why you are my favorite person in the world. You begin by talking about embracing things that make us uncomfortable and to over come them and somehow fit in a Pac Man reference. Awesomeness.
Lovely insight!
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