July 31, 2008 at 4:31 am (Bumping into YOGA, Stepping it up and DANCING, The steps of LIFE)
Tags: Dancing, Life, Yoga
… Which divides discipline from forcing oneself to do things when one is just not ready to do them.
Not sure why, the line is often blurry to me. Like tonight: it is a “normal” dancing night, but before going out I was feeling tired and really quite unwilling to get dressed and out the door… and certainly much less willing to actually dance.
Of course I went. Out of discipline, or something. And of course I sucked big time on the dance floor. I was cranky, I didn’t feel the music, and I was as stiff as I’ve been on the mat in the last few days. In this sense, I have worsened since the past week, when my Yoga practice was quite poor, but I still felt “right” on the dance floor. Sigh.
Never mind. I just need to remember: Dancing is something I do for pleasure, for fun. It is *not* an obligation. When it comes out of the heart, it’s just great. When it does not, when my body is telling me it is not ready for it, when my spirit is telling me that it needs something else, perhaps I should listen… because when I don’t, I end up paying the price anyway.
Yeah. Again the same old, same old. I need to learn to listen to myself, to connect to myself, instead of disregarding what I hear myself saying and just applying the military dictatorship regime and shutting my internal voice off.
P.S. And, incidentally, my Yoga Practice has continued to be frustrating in one way or another. Today my balance (or lack thereof) made me feel embarrassed during Mysore. Every time I wooble at Triangles, every time I tremble with the Hasta Padas and I cannot hold my leg up, I want the earth to eat me. On top of that, D clarified that I am holding my breath here and there, rather than just breathing deeply. Hum. Today was my Day #40 of Practice. I want to think that this is too little and that I’m just fine where I am right now…; the irony is that I was still expecting more of myself. I’ll have to exercise my patience, I guess.
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June 29, 2008 at 5:22 pm (Bumping into YOGA, Stepping it up and DANCING)
Tags: Dancing, Yoga
So after my practice frustrations yesterday, I spent the day doing not much more than burning CDs into my Mac, writing and reading blogs. There was a lot of other stuff pending that I need to get done–since I’m traveling again tomorrow, for a week, to my parents’. But, of course, since I was feeling low, I decided to be miserable and to procrastinate.
Eventually, the night came in, and only then I decided to get my act together, dress up, and go dancing. I had a great time–all my usual partners were there, and happened to make very sweets comments about my style and way of moving, which really got me in high spirits. Yeah… dancing can really give me a joyful high that is difficult to express in words, but that keeps me going back to the dance floor. Mind you, it is also true that on my 6 years of dancing I’ve also had many low periods in which my apparent inability to connect to my partner and the music really depressed me… but luckily, I think I’m learning to go over those dark days faster than before, and find myself in the dance again.
I must have slept very well, because this morning I was ready to go to practice again. On Sundays, the shala is packed; two fellow yoginis had to make me a bit of space when I came in, at D’s request. The whole thing worked much better than yesterday–I was somewhat tired from the night before, but still able to focus much better on what I was doing and on my breath in particular. I’ve had better sessions-in which I felt stronger at Chaturanga or in which the inverted triangles worked better-but at the end I was definitely happy; nothing to do with yesterday morning, for sure! Yeah 
Yoga does not give me the same type of high that dancing does, but that doesn’t mean is of lesser quality. The Yoga high may be more subtle, but it’s more consistently permanent. Mmmm.
So today I need to run some errands, do a bit more dancing (this time at the outdoors, , I love that) and then pack. I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon, but I need to go to work in the morning (important pending stuff that could only be finished tomorrow, due to scheduling conflicts). I’ll have to remember to stay calm and practice everyday while I’m away; surely I’ll be posting here and at the WoYoPracMo to keep myself in check!! 
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