Nairam’s Roads

Well. In the relatively short period of time I’ve been practicing Yoga in my life (which amounts to the fabulous quantity of 21 days of actual work on the mat) one thing has become really clear: as much as the Yoga practice has an impact on my Life (balancing it and calming it down), the reverse is also true; and any restlessness that I may be experiencing in my days comes with me to the mat as well. 

Yesterday I had a really nice practice-I felt fluid, strong and elastic, and K even came to congratulate me on a couple of poses that I got great after having struggled with them for a few days. I had slept well, and I had awaken with a real eagerness to go to Yoga practice after having missed it the previous morning due to my cold. 

That was yesterday. Today… Oh my Goodness. Total collapse and frustration. I will start by saying that I really didn’t feel like going, in the first place. When the alarm clock started ringing, I seriously considered skipping practice. I was having a weird sensation of vacuum inside which I have sometimes when I’m tense, tired and sleep deprived. Moreover, inside my mind and heart, I was ruminating about a little argument I had with my long-distance boyfriend over the phone yesterday night. That, of course, added to all the sadness linked to my upcoming trip to my parents… But I couldn’t come up to terms with the idea of breaking my self-imposed discipline, and ended up getting dressed quickly and driving to the shala.

;(

Practice was a disaster. For one thing, I couldn’t concentrate at all. My mind kept running around to all these other women around me (for some suspicious reason, men never go to Mysore practice on Saturdays… sometimes I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that there is a younger girl who’s in charge of supervising the practice, instead of the other two main instructors; not that she’s bad, but the other two are just too fabulous to even get to compare).

Anyway. I was feeling a bit groggy and stiff to start with, but things seriously worsened from the moment when the supervisor noted that I was not rolling my toes sufficiently as I transitioned between poses in the Suryas. It’s true: the rolling bothers me a bit and instead I’ve been giving little “jumps” almost unconsciously. When she instructed me to do it differently, I of course was happy to oblige (I want to do this well, I am very strict in my mind about it) but for some reason that totally disrupted my flow. My transitions slowed down very significantly while I tried to roll the toes, and my breathing couldn’t have been shallower. I was drenched in sweat with the effort. 

Eventually I finished the series of Suryas that seemed endless because of my failed toe-rolling technique, and moved to the standing asanas. Yesterday I was very excited thinking that I had finally made it to the final one: the Parsvottanasana, and that I would soon be able to start the proper Primary. But today the moves were just a painful torture which I wanted to end as soon as possible. I went into the Prassarita Padottanasana A-D, which I usually find quite doable, but this time was a horror struggle. While in the middle of it, I raised my head and saw D, one of the favorite instructors. He was sitting in the shala’s lobby watching me through the glass doors. It may have been my own imagination (and unhappiness with my performance) but I sensed he wasn’t happy with my breath and the way I was doing the vinyasas. So, I stopped and restarted it. I didn’t add the Parsvottanasana in the end-I had no energy and felt really depressed and unhappy with the whole situation. Again, I glanced around me. A friend, who’s being practicing for over a year now (so she has 340 days of advantage over me ;P) was moving through the UD and beyond. I wondered if I could ever get even remotely close to that in the same period of time. As I see it right now, probably not.

I left the floor quickly, as if I wanted to escape… (sigh). This was not a good feeling–I had never felt like this in my previous days of practice. I want to think that this was just my not leaving my bad energy at home–it chased me around to the shala and onto the mat. It is striking how much it affected my performance.

I guess this is proof that Yoga is a practice that is about, first and foremost, discipline of the mind. What the body can do is endless and amazing–all the restrictions and boundaries come mainly from my own thoughts and the lack of focus. That is obvious. The days in which I am not willing and/or capable to quiet my mind and concentrate on what I am doing, practice immediately becomes harder. Today, my heart was jumping around in pain, annoyed and lost. My mind continued to go over and over and over again through upsetting thoughts-which were supplemented by the additional annoyance and frustration as the quality of my practice sank. And I was just unable to control all those thoughts, to tell them to go away- and my heavy, stiff moves reflected that internal struggle.

Hum.

I want to think that this experience will teach me something important and help me in my future practice. Aside from the need to learn how to roll my toes comfortably (or any other technical aspects that I’m surely missing), the biggest challenge will be to be in the moment. To let go of everything else and concentrate on the endless possibilities to practice right. To be able to accept frustration and pain (emotional and physical) while letting them go as I continue to focus and to breathe. 

Not easy, I know. But I will get there.