Inspired by the storm

Thursday 19 November 2009

After practice tonight I had a quick dinner, then the dog and I sat on our big front verandah and watched the approaching thunderstorm.
In far off skies, the thunder and lightning gods were playing out a spectacular legendary battle. The battle moved closer and closer. Then the wind came, thrashing the storm seeds around – trees swayed wildly in an ecstatic gypsy dance, excited at the impending violence. Natural fireworks lit up the dark, blushing twilight skies, thunder crashed, everything came alive.
I watched in anticipation and awe, eyes darting to catch the split second lightning forks as they electrocuted the sky.

Electrical storms like this don’t occur very often here – maybe once or twice a year. Nature unleashes her pent up energy, thrilling us with a dramatic heavenly spectacle. But unlike tornadoes, cyclones and earthquakes, we can enjoy the thrill of her power without fear of death and destruction.

I’m glad to have no TV – comfortable couch potatoes would have missed the excitement of the real thing in favour of a dull weather report on the 9 o’clock news.

I rang my partner and got him out of the office and on to his roof. Over the phone we watched the skies together for 10 minutes then he returned to work.

I rang my daughter “Take Lily outside now!” She wouldn’t – not interested, too preoccupied with domestic dramas, dinner, dishes, cleaning up. The call of the wild storm fell onto deaf ears.

I rang my son “Go outside and look to the north sky” – the lightning strikes were flashing every minute now. “Which way is north?” he asked before he hung up. He would have ventured out reluctantly, watched for a few minutes, then gone back to the computer or the movie.

One day we will wake up OLD and regret all those times when we missed the thunder and lightning, the wind and the rain, the wildness, and all the delicious, magical, scary things that fill our landscape and surroundings. We must ignite all our senses to appreciate Nature’s extraordinary beauty, now.
Sometimes I like to close my eyes so I can enter my surroundings in a different way: listen to the sounds...smell...feel...drink in the vibrations through the pores of my skin.

Storms are a wild reminder that we too are wild creatures at heart, at home in the pulsing ocean waves or under the silvery light of the mystical moon.

Open your heart to the call of the storm. Elope and choose to live amongst the wild things.

“To change the landscape around you, change your eyes.”

Sweet solitude

Saturday 14 November 2009

It has now been three weeks since I officially quit morning Ashtanga yoga practices with Renate.

This is not a minor decision - we’ve been supporting each other as morning yoga buddies for 7 years now. After 2 months away in France and India she came back to find her rock solid yoga buddy had grown away from morning yoga (though I think she knew it was coming).
We did our 6am Tuesday and Thursday practice for 2 weeks after she got back, until I finally acknowledged the truth to myself that a shared morning yoga practice feels like a shoe that doesn't fit any more.
Being true to that, I’ve also turned down Kosta’s invitations to practice with him on Saturday mornings again.

Which leaves me blissfully all alone to do my own practices, in my own space, in my own time.

There’s a beautiful elegance in this yoga solitude. I am free of all yoga commitments and constraints now, not practising with friends, not going to classes, not being tied to one particular sequence or style - I have discovered a new freedom in which to enjoy my practice in private. Finally all those years of teaching and practising yoga have come to fruition in this beautiful ending. Strange to feel like I’ve jumped off a cliff and am now soaring with the warm currents of life.

The pre-summer heatwave here has rekindled fond memories of mid-summer yoga workshops with Glenn Ceresoli (I must have done about 5 workshops with Glenn over the years), consecutive days of early morning and evening sessions in the big breezy Iyengar studio: slow yoga, long holds, supported opening poses, deep internal focus, lots of inversions, the deliciously warm open bodies, the whir of ceiling fans cooling our skin, the release of my body and mind into Glenn’s voice and hands.
Very different to Ashtanga.

Last week I printed out some of the notes I took from Glenn's workshops (the blog came in very handy) – my 2005 notes are here and the 2007 notes are here.

So I've been doing a similar yoga practice: short morning sessions with some sun salutes, standing poses, core work and inversions. After walking home from work, I’ve been going straight to my mat for some supported, long, slow, deep, cooling yoga, supta this, supta that, lots of inversions, handstand, Pincha Mayurasana, backbends over chairs, Supta Padangusthasana and Bharadvajasana to the wall, long shoulderstands with every variation I know.

My back has loved the Ardha Halasana variation (left) where you press the feet into the wall, lift up through the spine and hold the pose with legs parallel to the floor. It's a good variation for people with short hamstrings as the feet don't go all the way to the floor, but I do it to work the deep abdominals that support my spine. Instead of letting the lower back round you have to lift up out of the lumbar to straighten the lower back while pressing the feet firmly into the wall, legs rotating inwards, press the hands into the back - which is NOT being done properly by the girls in the picture by the way - so the upper spine and breastbone come towards the chin (Jalandhara Bandha) and hold the pose for 3-5 minutes.

Half of my bedroom looks like a messy Iyengar studio: 3 mats, 5 blankets, 2 purple blocks, straps, a folded blanket on top of a chair. In the corner another yoga blanket is folded beneath my meditation cushions and covered with more blankets that are not needed in this heat.

For now I’m blissfully happy playing alone here in my yoga sandpit.

Morning practice notes

Thursday 22nd October 2009

Yoga practice wasn’t a dance this morning – it was a slow moving steam train.

Renate and I were both lethargic for different reasons. Renate had a very physically demanding day yesterday, and my day had been overloaded with work challenges.
Recently I’ve been waking up intermittently at night having just dreamt about work – it’s invaded all my mental space again.
An overactive mind uses a lot of energy and the mental energy drain is very obvious during a yoga practice. The mind has to be retrained over and over to be present and not obsess about the past or the future. That is yoga practice.

So I worked hard at this kind of yoga practice this morning, watching the obsessive thoughts invading my mental space, observing the physical drain, and trying over and over to bring my mind back to what I was doing in the moment – asana.

My first battle to fight was to get to practice: resistance is strong. I’m as bright as a bubble at 5.15am but my motivation to do a 2 hour yoga practice has been eroded by nagging doubts that manifest as the big question “What’s it all for?”
I ask this about everything now, and that’s not bad.
For now I ignore the narrative and just get up, get ready and go.
I don’t question the benefit of yoga practice as much as the 6am start. It feels like a commitment I could do without, especially as the urge to simplify my life is forcing the issue.

Practice starts slowly. Knowing I have the option to stop and sit in meditation at any point is a healthy bribe.
After one hour, Renate opts for meditation. I fill out the entire two hours with a pot-pourri of poses that my body asks for: after the obligatory sequence of standing poses, I go to the wall for one long handstand, lead weight heavy, all the accumulated rajastic body energy draining downwards into my wrists and hands. My 48kg body suddenly weighs a ton.
Two seated forward bends, two supported backbends over a block and then I lifted my spine up and off the block into Urdhva Dhanurasana, twice. Upavista Konasana then a twisted forward bend over each extended leg. I came to centre then hung out for a while over the wide open space between my legs, trying to relax and allow my hips to open passively rather than actively engaging the leg muscles to lift me up, out and down to the floor. Passive got boring. I nearly fell asleep. Is this Yin Yoga? I tried the same passive approach in Baddha Konasana, an emotionally challenging pose now, only because a year ago I could extend forward and down and eventually rest my nose on the floor. Now, post injury, I can barely move past upright. So I sit slightly forward of upright, breath light and love into my lower back and hips, waiting, secretly hoping for a miracle opening. It doesn’t happen
Tired of being stuck upright I move on to a few core exercises, including laying on my back, legs raised to 90 degrees and curling my head and shoulders off the floor, working incrementally through the spine, moving up and back with the breath.
Shoulderstand, Halasana and Pindasana, Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana before Matsyasana, then a long Headstand and the finishing Padmasana poses.
There…two hours…done.

Renate and I part. I change into my work clothes and wander out of the Gallery and down to the café for half an hour of journaling and an espresso shot.
Walking back to work I realise that the stress induced obsessive work thoughts must have subsided some time during practice. My mind is now calm, clear and receptive. Only a few stray yoga thoughts waft through my mental field like warm gentle, summer breezes.

Beauty

"Somewhere in every one of us, no matter how deep it may be hidden, is a latent germ of beauty...we dance because this germ of beauty demands such expresion, and the more we give it outlet, the more we encourage our own instinct for graceful forms. It is by the steady elimination of everything which is ugly - thoughts and words no less than tangible oblects - and by the substitution of things of true and lasting beauty that the whole progress of humanity proceeds."
Anna Pavlova

Ballet Exercises

Wednesday 21st October 2009

"I dance til I am empty. I dance til I am full. My dance is my prayer"

To dance is to feel the breath of life flowing through the soul and creating harmony with the music. Once the torment and ecstasy come together: dance - magic - is created onstage or in the studio.

Oh the glory of ballet! What is it about ballet that sets it apart from all other forms of movement? Is it the music, the costumes, the line and fluidity of the dancers, or is it the purity and elegance of the art itself?
It is all of these and something more. Without the glitter, sans costumes, even on a barren stage, even in rehearsal clothes, ballet remains the most enchanting form of dance ever created.

I watched Mao’s Last Dancer on the weekend, the inspiring true story about ballet dancer Li Cunxin.

Having done ballet many years ago, dance is a part of my body, which is one of the reasons why I settled on the flowing Ashtanga yoga practice instead of the slower, more interrupted styles.
Since I stopped going to yoga classes, my yoga practice has become much more expressive – naturally. Ashtanga vinyasa yoga encourages a dancelike grace. Prana juices flow through my body, my limbs extend, my fingers tingle, grace, beauty and love overflow through my movements.

Our bodies and limbs are extensions of our selves, and our selves are creative instruments, expressions of the Divine source. When movement is performed with devotion, it enters the realm of poetry.
PeaceLoveYoga recenty posted a link to a lovely contemporary dance interpretation of Surya Namaskar which you can view here.

I was 16 years old when I discovered classical ballet, too late to take it up seriously, but I was smitten. I joined a class of beginners – 8 year olds – and felt completely out of place amongst those tiny bodies, bit it didn’t matter. I did one class a week for about 3 years until my life changed. Not until my early 30’s did I take it up again and I immediately fell in love with ballet all over again. I went to an adult classical beginners class religiously for years until yoga overtook my life and sadly I couldn’t afford to do them both.

If it wasn’t for my fragile hips and lower back I’d be tempted to go back to ballet class again, but it’s much too dangerous for me to follow instructions and risk doing more damage.
But I’m thinking a little routine of barre exercises, plies, pas de chats and arabesques in the safety of my bedroom will help quench my body’s thirst for some creative movement.

I borrowed an exercises DVD put out by the The New York City Ballet from our local library last week which I’m dying to watch and try out. It’s times like this I wish I had a TV and DVD player (momentarily anyway). I’ll have to invade someone’s house to be able to watch it before it has to be returned to the library.
The promotional line on the back cover of the DVD made me laugh out loud – it went something like:
“Kylie does it, and so does Madonna. So practice that plie.
After all, the lotus position is SO last year...”

Morning yoga trip

Tuesday 12th October 2009

My yoga friend Renate just returned home after a 2 month trip to France and India with her husband. We resumed our longstanding (has it really been 5 years?) Tuesday and Thursday 6am practice schedule this morning, then caught up on the last 2 months over coffee afterwards.
Getting up at 5.20am was disarmingly easy. I slipped into yoga clothes, drove to the Gallery, lit incense and set up mats and blankets, quite enjoying retracing my steps over this well worn routine.

But practice wasn’t so easy; after 2 months of evening yoga, I’d forgotten about the stiff early morning body resistance that requires so much more patience and humility.
My mind was willing, even eager, my vitality was strong, but my lumbar, sacrum and hip joints had solidified in cement overnight and weren’t budging. Forward bends were stopped short by a piercing knife lodged in my sacrum.
I got to Marichyasana B without compromising, but the accumulated forward bends took their toll on my persistence.

I took the short cut route to the backbends, visiting a few more poses on my way there: Garbha Pindasana, Baddha Konasana, Upavista Konasana and Supta Padangusthasana.
Arriving in backbend territoryI went through the preps: Salabhasana, Dhanurasana, Ustrasana, Setu Bandhasana, then hit the pinnacle Urdhva Dhanurasana. It stretched open every tissue down the front of my morning body, painfully slowly. If I’d been smart I would have done a good shoulder opener first, because it took a couple of breaths before they opened enough to straighten my arms through the elbows. I held a reasonable backbend courageously for 10 breaths , then sunk back to the floor, satisfied.

Meandering through the finishing pose sequence was sweet, like a walk in a perfumed garden. Instead of counting the breaths in Headstand, I counted the length of each breath – 5 counts inhale, 5 counts exhale, then watched as the count gradually and naturally lengthened without any interference on my part. Quiet pauses began to appear at the beginning and end of each breath, then THEY gradually lengthened.
Pranayama in Sirsasana.

All up a surprisingly pleasant return to early morning practice.
No need to travel to India when I can travel through yoga.

Walking, no talking

Monday 5th October

Just for the record:
Yesterday I did
- 100 breaths in Shoulderstand (8 minutes) and
- 100 breaths in Headstand (10 minutes)
at the end of my practice.
Easily.

My brother and I went for our first walk together up in the mountains yesterday. I hadn’t seen him since Christmas. He’s a walker too. Tagging along were his two girls and his giant puppy of a dog. The girls are in their early twenties and couldn’t keep up with us!

This morning, I headed for the mountains again, this time alone. Being a public holiday today, the city was bathed in a leisurely atmosphere. Nobody shopping. Lots of bike riders and hardly any cars on the roads. Still it was good to get out of the city.
I turned off my phone for the whole day so I could spend it in silence with no interruptions.
Tonight, another walk, this one with my dog along the river (Torrens Linear Park) a much easier but longer walk.

Lots of walking going on…not much talking.

Tomorrow is the first official day of my one week of holidays so I’ll walk up the mountain again in the morning. The rest of the week I’ll be babysitting little Lily and I'm not sure what that will be like. could be great fun or really hard work (she's five years old).

No access to a computer for the next week.
Happily offline now...