Friday

Ladies holiday. Woohoo! Is it pathetic that I am so happy about a couple of days off? I'm already plotting about whether I should go to Volleyball Guy's led class tomorrow. But it's our big moving day, tomorrow, so I should just focus on that.

The Cop has slowly and methodically been moving stuff from this house to the new one over the past couple of weeks. It's like things are dematerializing over here. I get home from work each day and the house is slightly emptier. I love it. So many people want to make things happen and struggle with it, but not The Cop. He has a strong will and lots of energy.

Already I miss practice. So I surf Ashtanga blogs to compensate ;-) This morning, I was reading Sammy's blog. There was some discussion in the comments about people practicing alone and how hard that can be. Sammy often practices alone, or at least has to be pretty proactive about finding a person or two to practice with. That's some dedication.

My week of alone practice kind of snuck up on me. There was the Monday alone at Volleyball Guy's, which, obviously, was unplanned on my part. I guess everyone had MLK Day off and decided to skip Mysore. Except me. And then I had my usual Tuesday and Thursday practice at home, and then I decided (kind of on the fly) to practice at home on Wednesday. I have no final report, yet, on practicing alone. I'm not ready to make any statements of intent. But I was fascinated to see how emotional it sometimes felt, and also how simultaneously empowering and yet routine.

Once the empowering factor wears off, what you would really be left with is day-to-day routine. Which can be a delightful, zenlike routine, I'm sure. Like sweeping at the zendo (or anywhere, really--I'm a big fan of sweeping) when you really are just present and mindful. When there is no drama and no intense will and no heavy intent--just the pure doing of a routine.

There's a lot more to think about this, but not quite yet. For now I'll just see what happens.

Pure will drove my first Ashtanga experiences--and it was sustained on classes, and the people in class, and reading, and questions, and my idea of Ashtanga, and all the trappings. So now I am curious about what is left when all of that is stripped away, and the will it takes to practice is reduced to the amount of will that sustains, say, a routine of sweeping. Or the routine of getting myself to work...which I'd better get going on.