Community

This morning had the potential to be a morning from hell. First off, no hot water. The Cop was experimenting with the water heater last night, and it didn't work out the way he expected. I tried to move My Gift's car out of the way so I could get out of the driveway, but it wouldn't start. The engine wouldn't turn over at all--just totally dead. I tried again. Nothing. Tried again. Nothing. Tried yet again. Why do I not believe the empirical evidence of dead mechanical things? Well, it's a good thing I don't, because it started finally. I have no idea why. My wishful thinking, perhaps. So a tough morning. Which started with an email from Volleyball Guy: he is in Manila, checking things out, then will head for the beaches. Okay, I'm happy for him, but there's something kinda sad about a note from your teacher halfway around the world when you are puttering around the house at 4:30 AM.

Have no fear! Sanskrit Scholar to the rescue! Sanskrit Scholar invited "the Mysorians" to practice at her work's fitness center. The catch: we have to go in through the ladies locker room. Hence, the guys can't join in. So this morning, The British Director, The Beautiful One and I huddled in the dark parking lot of Sanskrit Scholar's workplace and waited for her to show up with her card key.

Hmmmm, yoga in a corporate environment. Something I've never experienced. Perhaps I shouldn't have worn my bedroom slippers. Oh well. The four of us put our mats down in a nice (mirrored! yikes!) aerobics room, amid the weights and the Swiss balls and...hey, look! they have yoga mats and straps and blocks! Just outside the door, folks were on cardio machines, watching the morning news. We cranked up the heat in the aerobics room and set off.

Good news when I got to ardha baddha padmottanasana: my knee felt pretty much fine. Massive doses of ibuprofen really do work! I can still feel that it's tender, but this doesn't seem at all as serious as the right knee injury I had a few months back.

Now, everyone started at the same time this morning, but sure enough, I finished ahead of the pack. Sanskrit Scholar made a comment and I said I thought it was because I must breathe too fast. But she discounted that, and said she just thinks I have an efficient practice. She mentioned that sometimes she takes many breaths to get into a pose. I, on the other hand, just kind of go for it--perhaps this is a remnant from zazen practice. You pretty much know when you sit zazen that you're going to feel uncomfortable at some point in the sitting: you'll get a sore knee or realize you sat with your toe kind of weird or you get an itch or whatever. Part of the sitting is realizing that your mind is hyperconcerned with physical comfort and that that comfort is always fleeting. If you adjust to get more comfortable, you're just going to find something else that isn't comfortable--so you might as well let go of all of that and just sit. I take that to my yoga practice: I do my best to get into the pose with some integrity, and then I just let go and experience it. I assume it's not going to be perfect--and I'm usually just happy if I don't fall over ;-) Heck, I'll have a bazillion opportunities to practice these poses, over the course of years, so I don't need to get overly invested in any particular pose or progression.

Ah, but I do have a bit of a focus these days: backbends. Boy, do my backbends stink! I did three today, against the wall with blocks under my hands. And I've been doing three more before lunch (I go home for lunch, so this isn't quite as insane as if I were doing it at my desk), and three before dinner. I'm trying to make them seem routine and less daunting, and I always feel flexible when I am hungry.

Okay, enough for now. The Mysore community limps along without its teacher, I've invented a weird backbend routine, and the Mysorians are scheduled for 5:45 Friday morning in the corporate fitness center.