Climbing shoulders

Today's practice was good, as usual. Chanting Man brought his daughter again. I think I will call her The Cat, because she has a lovely little cat-like quality. I envy her yoga karma--imagine having an Ashtanga practice at 9 years old. I thoroughly enjoyed practicing next to her today. She is a gracious next door neighbor. Aware of what's going on around her, but not affected by it. Nice.

For the past couple of nights, I've stretched my shoulders out by backbending over the Swiss ball and grabbing sandbags in my hands, then rolling forward on the ball so the weight pulls on my shoulders. It is passive stretching, and it seems to be teaching me some things about my shoulders and upper back.

So today in practice, I get to urdhva dhanurasana and I have a question. A totally unplanned, and therefore totally inarticulate, question. I was also a bit slow to speak because I don't like to disturb the quiet. Volleyball Guy saw the question in my eyes and came over and put his arm around me and leaned forward to hear what I was thinking. I told him about the stretching I'd been doing and said I felt like pushing up into urdhva dhanurasana kind of "locks" my shoulders--that it might be counterproductive to what I'm trying to figure out right now. He didn't miss a beat, and had me do a couple of ushtrasanas and three dhanurasanas. Then he had me do a handstand. He turned his back to me, grabbed my ankles, and picked me up off the floor, then he bent forward at the waist until I was backbending upside down. Kinda cool. And it felt really good! I am impressed with his solution--backbends that don't involve my shoulders in the way that urdhva dhanurasana does.

In savasana I suddenly flashed on climbing. I've always attributed my tight shoulders and upper back to 15 years of weightlifting, but I imagine climbing played a role, too. In climbing, I was always pulling down with my shoulders/arms. And when climbing overhangs, your upper back really gets a workout. And factor in the fear component. I am afraid of heights (or I was) and I was in these situations where I was continually being challenged, where alot of the discipline was simply about not freaking out. I guess your muscles get pretty tense when you are hanging off a cliff, huh? In savasana, I realized some of that feeling is still in me. So I need some time to work around in my shoulders and kind of figure out how to let go of that fear.

I'm including my favorite picture of me climbing, just for fun. I miss it. I miss overcoming my fear, and I miss the sweet feeling of touching the ground after being off it all day. I miss being so conscious of my own mortality, and in a situation where I couldn't think about anything except what was right in front of me. Kind of zen. Forced zen, really. You have to be in the moment, or you're screwed. Extreme zen. LOL!