No--seriously, I am in India

I had a hard time going to sleep last night. It could have been the new moon. It could have been "the roots" (my roommates are crazy hippies that constantly promote the wondrous miracle of their special root powder). It could have been the loss of another close friend to the transient nature of Mysore. When I finally got to sleep, my dreams were intense and fiery. I awoke with electricity and snoozed with gusto. I kept asking myself what time I had to be up, at practice, in the shower. Everything felt off. I slept with my eyes open as the hot water beat my back in the shower. Were my eyes open when I brushed my teeth? It was all like a dream. But when I jumped on my scooter and the wind blew the sleepiness off my face, all I could hear was some Bob Marley song from earlier the previous day. "Wow I'm in India!"

Was I in a David Lynch movie? It could have been. Before I had left the house, I was online looking for some human connection, reading emails, and skimming the front page of the New York Times. Packs of wild digs were howling outside like I've never heard before. I was almost scared to go out there. A car horn was letting out a steady honk. The headline reads:

BAILOUT FAILS; STOCKS PLUNGE

After Vote, Dow Closes 777 Points Down

And further down:
For Stocks, Worst Single-Day Drop in Two Decades
I imagine the end of Fight Club when all the financial institutions are crumbling to the ground.

In front of the shala there are a fraction of the scooters that there were last week. On the steps, there are less sandals. Inside, there were so many open mat spaces that I had a hard time choosing. I eventually rolled out next to Mauricio, Alex, Nuno, and Francisco. Nothing abnormal about practice except perhaps that the standing postures are beginning to feel more natural like when I was at Guy's. (I'm starting to think that this is an effect of second series only--the shoulders aren't as bulky? Also noticeable difference in back bending...read below.) I tried to take my time and to lengthen my breathing in the poses that make me uncomfortable to do so such as pasasana, bhekasana, etc.

I had worked on some eka pada and dwi pada strategies with Alex. With the eka pada's, I really felt a difference, and with the dwi pada, I was more even, however, I didn't remember until I was already finished that I had planned to come into it a different way. Oh well, there is always tomorrow. I felt fairly comfortable in yoga nidrasana--my feet felt pretty even behind my head. But then, down the tip of my nose, I could see Sharath hovering above me like those movie images of doctors hovering over a patient which has just reached consciousness. I lifted my head, he wedged his feet between mine and started wiggling them away from each other so they went deeper behind my neck. Then, I pressed my head back and my neck was practically on the floor. After, he told me "dwi pada like that". He said it a few times because I think I looked at him with this dopey blank stare that I probably have before 5:30am. I asked him if I should take dwi pada again and he said nope--tomorrow.

Sharath stood in front of me during all three of my back bends and all three of my drop backs. Now when I'm dropping back, I'm hovering until I can see my legs and bending my arms as if I would grab and then lightly landing on the floor. I think this helps me. When I went for chakra bandhasana (because let's just admit it, those aren't ankles anymore), Sharath took my right hand just behind my right knee. When he took my left hand, I was like "yeah right" because usually it is "yeah right" but today it was: Yeah. Right. I straightened my legs and brought in my elbows. He inched my left hand higher and then my right. He said to straighten my legs and I tried. He said to balance and I just stood there. It was a moment of total silence like that space before a car crashes where you see everything happening in slow motion or when you are about to fall. It was just me hovering there while the rest of the shala sped by. When I came up, I stood there for a second, completely winded. My body could not figure out what had just happened. I think Sharath was saying "good good". I was overwhelmed with...maybe it was emotion. I hobbled to the dressing room and just lied there for a while wondering if I should cry but by wondering, scared back the tears.

I feel great.

Reminiscing on LBH of yesteryear

I couldn't get my mind to stop. You'd think that with very little sleep, an early wake up, the meditative time of the morning, etc., I'd be easily jettisoned to yogi yogi land, but alas, this was not the case. I was going through the movements while the ticker read off every ridiculously insignificant bit of information it could gather and throw into my peaceful lake of a yoga mind. Yet at the same time, I was really focusing intensely on my practice. I guess this is what my first yoga teacher (if you don't count the Crunch yoga and Jane Fonda VHS tapes) patiently explained to us while my mind was who knows where. She'd say to picture your mind like the sky and in this sky (like any sky) are clouds. These clouds are your thoughts. You can't just make them disappear. Instead, you let them happen and actively allow your self to watch them float by rather than involve yourself with them.

It is surprising how much the body can learn and so quickly. Even just from yesterday, even though I felt tired and sore, I could really notice a difference in each pose. Or maybe it was just a full day of lounging poolside with Grace at the Lalita Mahal... Even therapy has its drawbacks. My whole body is a little too sun-kissed. Twisting hurt the skin on my stomach. Chaturanga hurt the skin around my armpits. My thigh skin--ooh.

With all the leg-behind-the-head postures I was knotting myself into today, I also got to thinking about my "LBH" history. I was never able to put both legs behind my head as a kid or anything. I could sometime touch one foot behind my ear, but that was pretty much it. In college I took a yoga class with Mary Flinn and I remember one day she just put me in supta kurmasana:


And then lifted me by my feet into dwi pada sirsasana:

It was the craziest feeling ever! I felt like someone dumped water over my head or if I was a bathtub filled with water, someone pulled the plug. It was intense and amazing and I didn't know how to get out! And now I'm tossing my legs over my shoulders every day like a bag of potatoes.

So Sore (the 5:30am pre-teaching and practicing post)

This week I got yoga nidrasana from Russell. I was a bit surprised, actually. I suppose I'm always surprised when I get a new pose.

The other night, I had browsed through my copy of Iyengar's Light on Yoga, and under eka pada sirsasana, the thing that really stands out is his comment on how in this pose you really realize how hard it is to get a leg back behind your head and keep it there. When I saw people doing the pose in the past, they always looked so serene, now I understand that they were concentrating on a lot of different things at once. For instance, you have to get the leg back there, plus you have to find a sweet spot where the leg can rest and not fly off your back. But, you also have to be able to fold and to do any of this, you have to be able to hold your head up.

For someone that reads constantly, I am discovering all the underdeveloped muscles in the back of my neck. It doesn't make sleeping particularly pleasant, but I'm hoping that its going to do wonders for my posture.

Next comes dwi pada sirsasana. Its not the legs behind the head part that is hard, its the lack of strength in my neck. After all the work in eka pada, I've got very little left to give dwi pada. I wonder how long it will take to get stronger? I think the first week the body is like "cool, I can handle this." The second week, it has used all its energy and that is when the real body changes begin.

Yoga nidrasana is great because gravity helps your head to weigh down your legs.

In a rush, off to teach...