Life is like a hamstring

No, not really. I was thinking about the Forrest Gump "life is like a box of chocolates" line. The hippie music Volleyball Guy likes is actually from that movie's soundtrack.

This morning, life was like the chocolate that doesn't want to practice. Yup, the chocolate with the resistant mind in the middle ;-) It told me my knees were tired (kind of a new trick, you sneaky mind!) and my hamstrings were going to hurt again, just like yesterday.

I frittered away a little bit of time reading:

Yunyan asked Daowu: "How does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion use so many hands and eyes?"
Daowu said: "It's just like a person in the middle of the night reaching back in search of a pillow."
Yunyan said: "I understand."
Daowu said: "How do you understand it?"
Yunyan said: "All over the body are hands and eyes."
Daowu said: "What you said is all right, but it's only eighty percent of it."
Yunyan said: "I'm like this, senior brother. How do you understand it?"
Daowu said: "Throughout the body are hands and eyes."

Sigh. You gotta love these guys.

So I found myself chanting the vande in my head, and went to my mat, figuring I ought to be standing on it by the time I finished. Practice was quite sweet right from the start, with, rather miraculously, no pain. How does that happen?! I was dying yesterday, and today everything felt lovely.

So lovely, in fact, that I not only paused before dandasana to put down my rug, I also put on the iPod so I could listen to Coldplay as I did seated. Just utterly delightful. Even the urdhva dhanurasanas.

Slowly, I am starting to understand the role my legs play in urdhva dhanurasana but I feel totally TWISTED from the weightlifting years. Actually, I guess I feel kind of "clotted" in spots--hamstrings/quads & shoulders/traps especially. Like the years of focus on those muscle groups kind of coagulated the energy into lumpy spots. Not as bad as it sounds, but when I see Crim Girl do backbends, her whole body/energy flows back and forth in a smooth arc.

I have these hunks of energy-sucking areas that I made with my mind and the weights. Black holes! ;-) I don't really regret it--it made climbing possible, and I suspect it's made learning Ashtanga a bit easier than it would have been otherwise.

I just need to smooth it all out--which ought to be a pleasant enough process. You know, provided my mind doesn't psych me out. I'm willing to ply it with Coldplay, though, as I reach back in the middle of the night, searching for a pillow. Whatever's necessary.