Sun Spot

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Sun Spot

It’s Sunday morning, and I lay out my mat near the window along the back wall of the studio.

It’s a winter day, and the sky is blue and cloudless. It’s cold, but the sun is shining, and I am glad my parking spot is several blocks away. It’s good to walk in the early morning quiet, only a few others out and about on this bright and beautiful day.

The class before ours is crowded, and the room gets heated, so those leaving pry open the windows in their wake. I keep my long sleeves on while setting up, chatting with some of the others and trying to warm up my mat, still cold from the night it spent in the car.

This class is Rocket yoga. It’s challenging and strenuous and one of my favorites. It’s an interesting mix of people, and an interesting mix of flows and inversions and arm balances. I am pushed to my limits each time.

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Seeing Stars

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Seeing Stars

I've been seeing stars at yoga.

As soon as you see the floor, put your hands down!

The instructor is standing in front of me, holding my hips. My hands are in prayer at my heart.

The plan is for me to bend backwards and look for the floor, tilting over and saving myself last minute with my hands.

I think most people can probably identify a time when they’ve had to save themselves last minute. Such challenges can just be part of life, the part where you learn, the part where your head spins and you see stars.

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Muscles

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Muscles

Yoga is like a long car ride, and I feel like the kid in the back seat asking, "When are we gonna get there?"

I’m thinking I need some more muscles. Not necessarily big ones, just more than I’ve got.

I remember when I started yoga, I stood in a studio with a group of women who had probably been working out most of their days.

It was day one for me.

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Grief

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Grief

“And when the tears you cry are all you can believe, just give these loving arms a try, and have a little faith in me.” ~ John Hiatt

It has never taken much to make me happy.

In college, there was a boy who would bring me cookies in the dining hall and proclaim exactly that.

A kind word. A sweet gesture. A chocolate chip cookie. Nothing grand.

When I first got married, we lived well, but I knew in my heart I would have been happy with just some love in a shack.

The other night, someone was celebrating an anniversary of sorts and passed out roses. I was one of the many recipients and was so touched, you would have thought I had been handed a diamond.

Here and there, I am often the recipient of other people’s kindnesses. It is often no different than what I would do myself but, these days, anyone’s generosity towards me sort of catches me off guard.

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Rain

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Rain

Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet. – Bob Marley

It’s been raining. It’s been raining for two days.

And I’ve always loved the rain.

When I was a little girl, on rainy days at camp, we’d pile into the social hall with our sleeping bags and watch old movies. My favorites were the Gene Kelly movies, Anchors and Singin' in the Rain.

I worked for weeks on his move where he carries his black umbrella under the lampposts and clicks his heels mid-air, off to one side and then to the other.

It’s even been raining at yoga.

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Gratitude

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Gratitude

I was trying to make a late evening yoga class, and it was a bit bumpy getting there.

I am a suburbanite but have found some classes downtown and, in the evening when there is no traffic, I can zip down there fairly quickly.

The studio is hot, the people are warm, and the energy is high.

I love stepping in.

But, the other night, the road was literally blocked, and I had to take a detour.

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Inner Strength

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Inner Strength

There is a pose in yoga called Tadasana, otherwise known as Mountain Pose.

In Tadasana, we move to the top of our mats and just stand there straight and tall. Nothing fancy. No twists. No binds. No balancing. We even get to close our eyes.

Sounds simple enough to just stand there but, actually, a lot is going on.

I always feel as if I am building this pose, bit by bit. The instructor usually runs down a checklist of the body. First, we stand as tall as possible with our feet rooting into the ground and our necks stretched long. Then, we are told to press our shoulders down and reach our arms along our sides. We are reminded to face our palms forward and reach through the fingertips.

We draw in our bellies, close our eyes and breathe.

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Confessions

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Confessions

We all carry some secrets, large and small.

The small ones are universal. They are the everyday thoughts we keep quiet as we walk around doing whatever it is that we do.

And what I do every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning is yoga.

For the most part, the practice clears my head. Whatever is on my mind seems to leave through the music and the movement.

After one such practice, a fellow yogi walked up to me to compliment my poses.

How long have you been doing yoga? he asked.

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Suck It Up!

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Suck It Up!

It seems like forever that I've been working on my handstands.

In every single class, I am upside down and trying to remain so. If I happen to be at a class where none are done, I stay after to work on mine.

At one point, I was in a class where we were all helping each other. Pressing down on my mat, I moved my feet as close to my hands as possible.

In my mind’s eye, I press down to go up. I want to pull in my belly and straddle my feet while raising them up to land a handstand.

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Neil Young

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Neil Young

Neil Young spoke to me the other day.

Not directly and not exactly, but I did hear him!

It was an unusual day which allowed for midday yoga, a rarity and a treat.

Earlier that day, I caught an interview on television with singer/songwriter Neil Young.

I had forgotten all about him and how much I love his voice!

I made a mental note to download some of his songs.

The interviewer asked Neil Young about his life. Were his songs autobiographical?

The singer hemmed and hawed, explaining that the songs came from inside, so inherent in each was indeed some truth. And, he admitted, not all his songs were so rosy.

The interviewer pressed further but received a cryptic answer.

It’s not all great, Neil Young said, but I’m sure glad to be here while it’s happening.

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Religion

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Religion

I grew up in a fairly observant household.

My father’s grandfather was from Russia, and his parents raised him in an Orthodox Jewish home. There were strict rules on the Sabbath.

No driving, no work, no writing, no telephone.

And the men and women sat separately in synagogue.

But, my father was a bit of a rebel in his younger years regarding religion and its related rules.

As a child, the day he broke his wrist, my father was supposed to be sitting safely in Hebrew school and not falling out of a cherry tree where he had chosen to sit, instead.

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Sweat

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Sweat

Most often I practice yoga in the morning, but the other day, I practiced at night.

I arrived dressed in work heels, work make up and work hair.

I grabbed the keys to the changing room and peeled off the day, putting on my yoga pants and top and taking off the shoes I had been in since 7:30 a.m.

It had been a long day, but something was still missing.

I had not yet sweat!

Before yoga, I had never worked out. I was raised to be a lady, and being a lady and sweating never quite equated for me.

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Speech

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Speech

Some things we hold in our minds. Some things we hold in our words.

And, when there are no thoughts or words, our bodies speak for us. Mine speaks to me in the yoga studio.

Two weeks ago, my body yelled at me when I pulled what I discovered was my Quadratus Lumborum. A big name for a little muscle in my lower back. I had to roll up my mat and leave the practice early.

That night, I booked an appointment with my miraculous masseuse who had once before fixed up the same sore muscle. Then, I skipped my next yoga class.

Anxious to return but moving too fast, I attended a couple more classes before realizing I just needed to give it a rest.

I gave it heat, ice and Ibuprophen and then booked two more massages.

I was off my regular practice schedule for two weeks and, oddly enough, it felt as if I had lost my voice!

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Music

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Music

Certain songs carry me back.

Without a second thought, a song can make me remember a time, a place, a person, a feeling.

Music does this. It brings memories to mind in an instant, measuring out segments of times long thought forgotten.

I think music is what got me hooked on yoga in the first place.

Not every yoga class has music, but I was fortunate enough to start at a studio that was somehow plugged into my playlist.

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Breathe

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Breathe

In general, I am a pretty private person.

I keep things close to the chest and, even when I share, I proceed with caution.

I connect easily with others and have been trusted with many confidences.

But, it is only on the very rare occasion that I share mine.

The hitch for me is being okay with the natural flow of people who come in and out of my life.

If I had my way, I would keep most everyone who passed through, especially those with any of my confidences in tow.

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Carl Jung

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Carl Jung

Yoga can either improve your mood, or “let loose a flood of sufferings of which no sane person ever dreamed.”

This, according to The Washington Post, is what psychiatrist Carl Jung thought about yoga.

I look at my yoga as a workout. It keeps me in shape. In fact, I only started yoga because a studio opened nearby, and I lost my last excuse to not work out.

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Movement

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Movement

From one day to the next, I look forward to yoga.

It has been more than a year since I first stepped into the studio, and I never tire of it.

I like preparing to go. I like being there. I like the workout.

And, in turn, I like whatever it is I am doing afterwards.

The after effects of each class stay with me until the next class, and so I go as often as I can.

It is a good place, and it puts me in a good space.

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No Regrets

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No Regrets

Trust that all that was needed to be done, was done. Everything is okay.

These are the closing words of an instructor whose class I have taken several times.

At the end of each practice, we roll onto our right sides into a fetal position and rest there for a minute, eyes closed.

And each time she says these words.

The comforting words wash over almost 30 of us who are each lying separately on our mats but together in the studio.

How is it that, at any age, it can be so reassuring to curl up in a fetal position and hear the words most of us heard as babies?

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Pruning

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Pruning

The other night, I heard a story about a man’s life.

He told it in 10 minutes flat through a metaphor about his favorite tree.

He was a generous and engaging speaker, conversational in tone and easy to hear.

He used his Japanese Maple as a metaphor, describing its canopy of leaves in the spring and summer, and its inner core of twisting branches revealed when bare in the winter.

He has had to learn how to tend the tree so that it lives year round.

This involves cutting back the branches and, while the pruning oftentimes leaves scars, he explained that this is what facilitates growth in all sorts of new directions.

Yoga has sort of pruned me.

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