My Brain on Yoga: a Flash Yoga Blog!

This blog is a flash yoga blog.  No, this isn't like a "flash mob" (though that would be RAD).  This is more in the spirit of flash fiction.  As Wikipedia puts it, "Flash fiction is a style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity. ... Some self-described markets for flash fiction impose caps as low as 300 words."  So that means: I am going to write this blog like a flash in a pan, or quick as a flash, typing anything that comes to mind, in a short 20-minute frame of time, and not exceeding 300 words in count.

Oh and also, I will be including some flash yoga-photos from my practice today, for comical relief.

My Brain On Yoga, the Home Practice Edition:

Sit still.  Breathe.  Stop thinking about your breath so much and breathe normally.  Right, like that.  Am I sitting upright?  Slouching?  Lean back.  Breathe normally.  Quiet the mind.  How do you quiet the mind?  I have no idea.  Breathe.  

Okay....  It's been a few minutes, right?  Time to put the hands in front of the chest in Namaste. "OOOOOOHHHHHHHH- cough-{oops, too low}...uh, MMMMMMMMMMMM."

"OOOOOHHHHH{too high??}HHHHMMMMMM." 

"OOOOOHHHHHHHHMMMMMM." Perfect. 

Let's get my Sanskrit chanting on!  Wow, wrong key.  I'm not sounding so musical today.  Why do I put a French accent on everything?  Was that the second time through the invocation, or third?  I can just do two, right?  What should my intention for my practice be today?  Something about being kind to oneself, not judging too harsh.  That sounds good.

Cat, cow, cat, cow, cat, cow.   I could cat and cow all day, it feels so good.  Until it gets boring.  

Dog!  Walking, walking....  Full dog.  Bend the knees, draw the groin muscles back, rotate the thighs in and back, don't lock the elbows, push through the pads of the fingers, pull the shoulders into the back.... Broaden the kidney area on your back, tuck the tailbone. Don't forget your core.  Core, ha! What core?!

Plank.  God, I love plank.  My arms are so strong.  Heels over my toes, rotate inner thighs in and up, soften the heart a little.  Don't forget the core!  God, I hate plank....  Now for some obligatory Chaturanga Dandasana torture and cobra.  LOVE LOVE LOVE me that cobra.  But don't forget your core!

 

Step to Uttanasana.  HELLO, hamstrings.  Release the head.  Rotate--wait, I said, RELEASE THE HEAD.  Okay.  Now, rotate the thighs in and back, tuck the tailbone a little, bend from the hip folds, go a little deeper.  AHHHH.   Let's stand up and stretch the arms over head. Core!!! Overdoing the backbend there, back off!  Am I jutting my chest out? Don't do that, silly; there's no one's looking.  Hmmmm, what to do next?

Dog.  Three-legged dog.  Right leg forward in a lunge.  High lunge.  Don't let the right knee extend over the right ankle, keep the inner thigh lifted, hips even.  Get that right hip in and that right buttock tucked under. Don't forget your core! Bend deeper?  Not happening.  Right hip, why do you continue to torment me?  Tight, tight, mean right hip.  Jump Switch!  Ha ha ha--yeah, in my dreams!  Step switch.  Rinse and repeat on the left.

Balance poses!  Grounding the corners of my left foot.  Right foot up carefully...carefully!  Right foot to left calf, rotate in the right hip socket for easy tree pose.  Keep that left leg strong, four corners of the foot, FOUR corners, not two,  wavering, wavering.... Okay.  Got it now.  Square, stupid hips, get square! Core, do not, I say, DO NOT forget the core!  Imagine a string of thread on the inside of your belly button pulling it to the spine and then up just a little bit.  Tuck the tailbone.  Oh, arms!  Up, up, up.  Ack!  Core! Core! For the love of Patanjali, CORE!!!  Wavering, wavering!  Mayday!  And touchdown.  Switch!

I should do some core strengthening... WAH HA HA HA HA!!!

Savasana time.  Relax....  Let the mind release any thoughts....  Damn, my nose itches.  Ignore it.  Ignore it.  How long have I been lying here already?

"OOOOHHHHHHMMMMM."  Crud.  What was my intention?   Oh well....

"Namaste!"

 And now for that picture fun... Adventures in Utthita Hasta Padangustasana (Extended Hand-To-Big-Toe Pose) and Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon Pose).  These are constant challenge poses for me, so know that I AM making mistakes and struggling and that you should not aspire to look like me!
 

Wobbling.

As straight as my leg goes.

Salute the Nikon judge!

Really don't have it!

Better....

Head turned up, and OMG!  Balanced!  Hooray!

Being present

Blog? What blog?

Hmmm…  It seems to me that, while I’ve been AWESOME at doing yoga for 30 minutes every day for 306 straight days now, my parallel goal to blog regularly and track my yoga minutes ever 10-14 days has totally gone down the toilet.  Oops.  I think I psyche myself out a bit with the blog.  See, I have all sorts of blog ideas, but I want them to be so dang good.  Like, really spectacular investigative yoga blogging.  That kind of thoughtful and thought-provoking work, it takes more than 30 minutes to write.  And I’ve been rather busy writing some earth-shattering copy about memory foam and weather stations and sewing machines during the last month or two.  Ah, excuses, excuses!

Besides, since the wrist injury in August, I’ve gotten out of the habit of writing down exactly how many minutes I’ve spent doing yoga every day on my calendar.  Believe me; I’ve done it every darn day.  I’ve just been lazy about documentation.  But I’m going to try to do some weekly guesstimates below, in the interest of being able to roughly estimate the total amount of time I spent doing yoga this year come New Years Day.

9/5-11: 230 minutes                         10/10-16: 275 minutes

9/12-18: 310 minutes                       10/17-23: 345 minutes

9/19-25: 220 minutes                       10/24-31: 275 minutes       

9/26-10/2: 340 minutes                    11/1-7: 230 minutes           

10/3-9: 340 minutes

Notable practices in the last two months:

• My first class post wrist injury on 9/12, taught by my lovely friend Megan, and captured on video tape to complete her yoga teacher training program.  Yay, Megan!
•  Yoga on the road, part one, September 22-27.  I did yoga in my lovely childhood friend Jamie’s yard in the Astoria hood of Queens, NY for three days.  Then I practiced for three days in Chappaqua, NY, at the home of my brother and sister-in-law, in the room that has since then become 26-days-old niece and nephew! 
• My first handstand post wrist injury, on September 29.  I love them so. 
• Yoga on the road, part two, October 16-17.  I did yoga at my old college pal Liz’s apartment in Portland, which rivals mine in tiny-ness.  There’s nothing like practicing with a hangover…

Cat and Cow--yoga cures for over-imbibing...

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Then there was my practice yesterday morning, my Daylight Savings Time “Fall Back” practice. 

Now, over the past ten months, my home practice has become very comfortable, very routine, and sometimes very boring.  I admit, since my injury in August, my daily practices at home rarely exceed 31-35 minutes.  When I couldn’t do any weight-bearing on my wrist, it was hard to drum up more than 30 minutes of poses and I’d check the clock constantly to find out how much more yoga I had to do.  I didn’t feel like doing yoga daily was a burden, but I definitely had negative feelings about my limitations and the amount of time I’d committed to practicing daily.  I could have embraced the injury as a golden opportunity to meditate more or to cultivate my pranayama practice.  But I have a tendency to let my restless energy dictate.  I’m not going to condemn myself for that—I am what I am.

However, as I healed and my home practice started filling up with downward dog, plank, handstand, and headstand and all those other weight-bearing hand/arm poses again, my clock-watching habit didn’t abate.  I’ve become a pro of the 31-minute yoga practice, barely lying dormant in Savasana for 30 seconds before jumping up off the mat with a quick “Namaste,” eager to go about my day.  In some ways, I feel like my home yoga practice in the last several months has more in common with my showers than my experiences in yoga classes: not a burden, but a necessary part of my day; sometimes luxurious, but generally not; routine.

So yesterday, with the help DST and that extra hour in the day, my morning felt so much more spacious than usual.  And that spacious feeling carried over to my yoga practice.  I was doing yoga “earlier” than I usually do on a Sunday morning, because I woke up “earlier” than usual.  I felt the freedom to linger in forward bends longer, to hold stretches and poses longer, to play with different poses than usual, to practice pranayama even.  I was engaging with my yoga with more intention and intimacy than I have in my home practice since before Labor Day.  It was an incredibly refreshing home practice—sublime.

In the Anusara yoga classes I attend, after we chant Om three times and the Anusara invocation in Sanskrit, the teacher always asks us to bow our heads towards our hearts and to set an intention for our practice before we release our hands, open our eyes, and start moving.  The intentions that I set in this pause are always attuned to my current physical, emotional, and spiritual status and needs.  If my heart is feeling tender, I set an intention to be gentle and patient with myself and to approach poses from a place of openness, without self criticism, and with no expectations except that I attempt poses to the best of my ability in that moment of that day.  If my heart is feeling joyous, my intention may be to express that feeling in my practice, to see how far my limbs can expand, to push the edge just a little bit further.

I googled "Be Present" and got Ernest Hemingway kicking a can.

I would like to set an intention for my home practice in the next 54 days.  Each time I step onto my mat, I will take the time to tune into where my body, mind, and heart are, how they are doing and what they need from yoga that day—set a daily intention, just like in class.  Then I will actively focus in my practice on meeting that intention and filling those needs, abandoning distracting thoughts about my schedule, work, food, and relationships until I am off the mat.  Lastly, I will move the clock so it is out of my line of sight on the mat.

I also hereby set an intention to blog more as I head into the last stretch of this journey!

Namaste!