Practice a Deux

Folie à deux (literally "a madness shared by two") is a rare psychiatric syndrome in which a symptom of psychosis (particularly a paranoid or delusional belief) is transmitted from one individual to another.
--Wikipedia

Tuesday mornings are practice with The Cop. Today he completed the entire series. Usually he gets irritated with kurmasana and then agrees to come along to baddha konasana, which I don't want to miss these days. This morning, though, we just rolled through the whole thing.

I helped him find his hands in supta k and he put his soles together. A huge bit of progress for him. And then, quite delightfully, he asked me what his drishti was supposed to be.

It's fun "teaching" The Cop. "Teaching" in quotation marks, because he is just like me and does NOT like to be taught. He likes to watch and figure things out for himself. If I start to explain, I can watch my words hit his "Do Everything Myself" force field, where they are revealed to be the lame explanations they are. Like trying to explain an answer to a koan to the zen master. You only have to get about two words out before you realize you should just stop.

So in the end, I teach just the way I most prefer: by example. Not to say I'm a stellar example. But I'll do.

And he'll do, too. He gave me a great adjustment in baddha konasana.

My own practice is in a good place: my focus has been on a handful of poses: marichy D (setting it up without putting my weight onto the vertical leg), supta k (getting the hand bind more fully and figuring out how to cross my feet), garbha pindasana (pulling it tighter) and baddha k.

Best of all, though (and I say this hoping I'm not going to jinx myself!): my hamstrings seem to be healed, and also just more generally stretched and open. Like they stay open even if I don't practice for a day. This is so lovely! I looked back in these entries and found that I have had hamstring pain since March. Seven months of it!

Why did I practice through all of that? Folie a un, I guess.