Day 143 – nice :)

June 4, 2009 at 12:00 pm (Bumping into YOGA, Step away and TRAVEL, The steps of LIFE)

Today I felt great–as if I were building up from yesterday’s experience. I was pretty fluid and fast, without the heaviness and broken movements that I’ve been feeling in the past few days of practice. My balance was much better, and I could feel that I’m have strengthened enough to go much lower in Chaturanga (before I couldn’t  bend my arms enough). I also made a point out of trying to lift myself with my cross legs and try to push back; I’m sure I looked a little funny (specially since every time I did a major landing on my butt) but who cares, that’s the only way to learn. And the irony is, doing it and failing felt like progress. I must add that my shoulder stand it’s also getting pretty good :)

Today was a good day to practice–things have been hectic and stressful at work, so I need it. I’m glad that I’m feeling good enough to practice on Friday and Saturday–Saturday night I’m traveling to Peru  for work once more, and since the flight is overnight, I can already guess that I will be mostly tempted to rest on Sunday. I hope I will be able to practice for the 10-days or so I’m away (and with days full of meetings…); I must, since I”m feeling so good right now, I wouldn’t want to lose the momentum I seem to be gaining. Somehow I need to find some time to practice…

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To practice

May 27, 2009 at 12:26 pm (Bumping into YOGA, Step away and TRAVEL, The steps of LIFE)

Practice, and all is coming. And I guess I’m not practicing. Not enough, that is. I officially started practicing Ashtanga (and Yoga, for that matter) at the beginning of June 2008. That gave me nearly 365 days to practice until today… days of which I have only used 139, counting this morning. Not even half of the days I had available. Sigh. Statistics don’t lie. Even if I want to fool myself, there is blatant proof of my inconsistency in the last year.

So today I went to the shala, not having practiced since last Wednesday. I felt stiff and heavy, and my balance was the worst ever… I could not do my normal standing poses feeling comfortable. I looked at myself in the mirror behind me and I blamed myself for not practicing, for not dancing, for not exercising more generally, for being a couch potato lately, and for eating too much. No movement or asana  felt right, and I soon was very discouraged and disappointed at myself.

A came to say good bye when he saw me rolling my mat and I confessed how bad I feel about my balance having evaporated completely today. He reminded me it is all about consistency. True.

The irony is that, all and all, I can still see that “some is coming”. Despite my lack of discipline with the practice, that I have improved–a lot, in fact. I can also see that I always feel better after practice–physically and mentally (see my last post). I wonder how it’d be if I really pushed myself to a different level of commitment and seriously did this *six* days a week, rather than my whatever number of days a week (regardless of valid excuses).

Reading Alfia’s post of Memorial day, I feel motivated. Maybe there is hope and maybe I have to make a bet with myself as well. I admit I’m scared. I’m traveling again soon– in mid June (10 days, work), in early to mid August (another 10 days, vacation) and perhaps in early July and late August (work, work). Can I keep it up, can I practice every day, no matter where in the globe am I and how tired I am?

Well, I better. I just know that I don’t feel well with my mediocre practice, even if I’ve been finding ways to justify it, and even if it is human to take breaks. Because, at the stats show crudely, this has become a regular thing for me–this thing of missing practice here and there, most of the times. It is not about real exceptions anymore.

So here I go–six days a week, as I did at the very beginning… To keep things in check, I will replicate my WoYoPracMo journal in here for a while, to record daily practices, along with some reflections.

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Back, but not quite…

January 7, 2009 at 6:03 am (Bumping into YOGA, Step away and TRAVEL, Stepping it up and DANCING, The steps of LIFE)
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So. More traveling and exhaustion. It seems that it will never stop. I was in San Diego over the past weekend… supposedly to celebrate the incoming of the New Year, and also to dance (there was a festival going on there). Plus, this was an occasion to see the (long-distance) boyfriend. The trip went well, though my energy was obviously really gone–I was so tired from work and the non-stop travel of the past few weeks, that I just fell asleep hours before New Year’s eve. The 3-hour change relative to the East Coast didn’t help me; I had to make an effort to open an eye and celebrate the New Year in New York that my boyfriend was watching on our hotel room’s TV. Poor thing, he didn’t even complain that I snored through it all. Other than that, the dancing was good, but again a test to how tired I was (since I was not able to pull the late nights *at all*). Ha, what a surprise.

Anyhoo… Back in town since yesterday night. I am *theoretically* on vacation, and running a thousand needed errands. Some of them pretty engaged–they involve some house renovations that I’m getting into, not without fear of the mess they’ll bring into my life. But I’ve been saying I’d do them for long enough, it’s time to just get to them, and things and plans have been in motion–though slowly–for a few months already. I just have to push ahead and do it. In fact, today I ran errands all day long and at least got a lot of stuff done.

Of course, my Ashtanga practice is one of the most important things that are not getting done these days. This frantic rushing between the office, the urgent stuff to do, and the airports, really demands of me a level of discipline and stamina to keep the Yoga practice going that I’m finding–not without disappointment–I just don’t have. I admit that, from time to time, the fact that I don’t manage to make the space for it doesn’t make me precisely proud of myself, although I also realize that maybe is simply makes me human.

At least I’ll be able to go back to the shala for the rest of the week to start to recover. Then… I travel again (on Sunday!!!). Ugh. And, 4-5 days after that, I will come back home and things will finally calm down. I’ll again have time for myself, and will go back to my more peaceful and normal life ;)

Can’t wait for that to happen…

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Peru’s Roads

December 4, 2008 at 5:03 am (Step away and TRAVEL)
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It feels like it’s been a long time since I wrote last. The few days before leaving the US to travel to Peru were hyper-hectic with work, and I ended up sleeping little and not being able to go to the shala for some last practice there…

The overnight flight to Lima and the flight from Lima to Cusco were pretty uneventful. We were, of course, hit by the altitude on first day and needed some time to nap and recover; taking it easy for the rest of the late afternoon and evening, strolling through the city, which is beautiful. While we felt a bit better about the altitude on the following days, we were quickly out of breath whenever we had to do anything mildly streneous (like climbing up the archeological sites) which deterred me from practicing in the first couple of days. After that, the LH’s gave me a good excuse to take time off while touring, and I only restarted practice once here in Lima (which felt great).

Cusco's Plaza de Armas (Main Square)

Cusco

Anyway, back to Cusco…

Cusco II

Cusco II

Seriously, you need to visit–the city, the surroundings valleys and sites, and Machu Picchu are just beautiful. On the morning of our second day, we went to the archeological site of Moray, which is thought to  have been an agricultural laboratory in which the Incas tested the changes of different crops to small variations in altitude and the changes of temperature that came with it (since they did a lot of terrace-based agriculture) in a complex of terraces built in circles.

Moray

Moray

Moray II

Moray II

Then we went to an Inca-time saline that is also based on some 2,000 shallow terraces near the town of Maras, and which still produces salt for the surrounding areas. Each different terrace is kept by a family of the town, and in addition they have a common terrace that provides for communal expenses, just like the Incas did. The whole saline was fed by a small stream of very salty water, that spreads to the terraces through channels.

Maras

Maras

The return trip allowed us to see some beautiful scenery…

Sacred Valley

Sacred Valley

We spent the afternoon visiting the Cusco city (which was the capital of the Inca empire) as well as some other archeological sites just out of the city (in the highest part, to be exact): Sacsaywaman and Tambomachay,

Tambomachay

Tambomachay

 and meeting their people… 

Lady in Tambomachay

Lady in Tambomachay

On the third day, we went to the ceremonial site of Machu Picchu. The site is actually at lower altitude than Cusco (still high, though). One must first do a 4-5 hour train ride to the city of Aguascalientes (early in the morning), and then take a 15 minute bus that takes you up the mountain to the site. Well, that, unless you want to walk for 3-4 days doing the challenging Inca trail :)

Main View

Main View

Another view

Another view

This place is just breathtaking. It’s just as good–or more–than you see in the photographs, so extremely powerful. Not surprisingly that it’s been named one of the new 7 wonders of the world by UNICEF. It is full of temples and stairs, and amazing surprises. Just look at this mirror in the Temple of the Pachamama (the Mother Earth, the Universe), that the Incas used to study Inti (the Sun) since it was forbidden to look at it directly:

Water mirror

Water mirror

 On Sunday, we went back to the “Sacred Valley of the Incas”, the beautiful and fertile valley that extends far from the outskirts of Cusco, well fed by the Urubamba river.

Valley and Urubamba River

Valley and Urubamba River

We visited there the famous market of Pisaq,

Family at Pisaq

Family at Pisaq

Old Lady at Pisaq

Old Lady at Pisaq

several other archeological zones like Ollantaytambo and Chincheros,

Chincheros

Chincheros

which also surprised us with wonderful views…

Chincheros II

Chincheros II

 a cute market…

Market at Chincheros

Market at Chincheros

warmth…

Her name was Felicitas (Happiness)

Her name was Felicitas (Happiness)

and innocent beauty.

Girl at Chincheros

Girl at Chincheros

After that, another night in Cusco and the return to Lima, to work, on the next day. By the way–Peruvian food is also amazing–acknowledged to be probably the best in Latin America, so being here rushing from meeting to meeting has its compensations (mmmm), though they can be a bit dangerous  ;)

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Me on the Mat

August 30, 2008 at 10:58 pm (Bumping into YOGA, Step away and TRAVEL, The steps of LIFE, Visiting the FAMILY)
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Today was my first day back at the shala after a semi-forced Yoga break…

While staying at my parents‘, I did practice every day, and practice was wonderful–strong, balanced, focused. I even got to think that I tend to be more inspired in that rugged carpet than when I’m in my own home or even at the shala. For the most of my stay, I was relaxed and in peace and had a great time. Looking back I realize that during those few days I probably managed to forget about a couple of things that have been stressing me out lately. Well…, at least until the last day of my stay, when I woke up cranky, groggy and irritated after a really bad night of sleep (full of nightmares about all those things that worry me…). Result? I was so upset all morning that I barely could get on the mat. I went furiously through the Suryas, getting even crankier at the fact that I could not let go and I could sense my anger (or whatever it was) boiling inside me with every breath. It was such an unusual and uneasy feeling that I ended up cutting the practice a bit short, using the convenient excuse that a couple of (annoying) phone calls interrupted me anyway.

The following 2-3 days, were busy and unexpected. I couldn’t practice the day of my flight back, since the flight takes off early, takes a good number of hours, and the airport is not so close, so the trip takes nearly all my day. Once back, I got the news about The Boyfriend’s health problem, and I had to cancel my trip to the Festival. While I decided to be constructive and use a few days at home to regroup and do some house projects that I had been putting off, I think the stress has taken over me. I know this because on Thursday and Friday I felt too tired to wake up at 5:30 am and run to the shala; after that I found myself meeting a long list of contractors to get estimates, and running house errands that took a lot more energy that I was expecting. In the meantime, I was more than happy to avoid my nice and healthy eating of the previous days to instead overindulge on crappy eating, having lots of pasta and ice cream (sigh).

Today I finally managed to get out of bed to go to Mysore. Lucky me, it starts at 8:00 am over the weekend, so I could not make more excuses to stay in bed (though frankly I wanted to). Practice was not so great–I was still tired, and I surprised myself gasping for air at some point during the Suryas, which had not happened to me since maybe my first week or second week of practice. I also noticed myself stiff, woobly and with a really unfocused and shallow breathing, although I managed to improve a bit over the course of the practice. I felt really great by the end of it, but by the time I came home I was so tired that I had to nap for a few more hours. 

So I’m finding that, as usual, my practice is just a mirror of my internal state… and it’s suffering from the share of struggles and stress I have these days. I wish I could reverse the energy of this mirror, make my practice not the effect, but the cause of my internal state of being. Improve its focus, its strength and balance, and then bring that out of the mat with me. Is that possible? I hope so. That is why I look up to Yoga so much. That’s why I have made it such an important ingredient of my life. 

I will spend a couple of more days here at home and then travel again. I do hope to let bygones be bygones and move on; working hard at the shala–and on myself. After that, I will need to gather my discipline to keep my practice going daily at The Boyfriend’s place (where I’m usually more tempted to slack, but I guess that’s part of the challenge!). I really need to try to do this. Wish me luck… ;)

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