donutszenmom.com

Lovely holiday (i.e., no office afterwards) practice. I feel nice and strong, lately — if a little stiff — and The Archangel’s been pointing out lots of things I need to do to ground myself more. Yup, I’m vata like crazy, and left to my own devices for almost a year of self-practice has allowed me to float up out of my legs. Seriously, I practically levitate during practice. Amusing, perhaps, from a “Whoa! Soon I’ll have a siddhi!” perspective. Not so good outside that whimsical imaginative realm.

Lately my (I think) T12 vertabra is feeling kinda sensitive. And it also kinda pokes out a bit. Both of these things give me pause. On the other hand, my back now folds open much more at that point. So I’m guessing I’m on the right track in terms of opening the thoracic. If anyone knows better and wants to issue a warning, feel free.

Along with the sore spinous process (and I’m assuming another result of the focus on thoracic opening), deep muscles are sore all along the bottom of my ribcage — sides and back, especially, but front a bit, too. In Richard Freeman’s Yoga Breathing CD, he mentions expanding the back lower ribs like “opening curtains.” Most metaphorical. Or, I guess, most simile-esque.

***

This morning, The Archangel and I had a little chat after practice. He noted that my right leg is a lot harder to get behind my head in supta kurmasana. Made a comment about some things I could do, as he put it, “in your yin practice.” Huh?!? Gosh, it’s like those dreams I sometimes have where it’s the end of the semester and we’re taking finals and I have never attended the class. A yin practice? Won’t having a yin practice to support my yang practice just be one more step down the road of obsession?

I was curious to hear how he thought the Mysore program was going. Soon my initial package of classes will be used up, and I’ll need to think about renewing. The studio has a six month package that I might purchase, but I don’t want to get stuck with a bunch of classes if the Mysore program tanks. And it’s not like they haven’t killed a Mysore program before…

Anyhow, I was talking about how nice it is to practice with a teacher, after being on my own for almost a year. The Archangel used to study with Tim Miller. Apparently when he told Tim he was moving to AZ, Tim said, “That’s too bad. If you don’t have a teacher, your progress is slower.”

Yes, the independence of knowing you CAN practice without a teacher is irreplaceable. On the other hand, having a teacher does make practice a lot more… well, overt, I guess. With a teacher, there’s no glossing over your weak spots, and there’re no half-hearted attempts at the tough stuff — at least any time they’re watching. I still sometimes feel lame for going in day after day, needing the same freaking adjustments, as if I ought to learn faster or something. But in the end, I guess if you love teaching Mysore, you have extraordinary amounts of patience. If it were me teaching, I think I’d have expectations about how quickly students should be able to “get” stuff.

I thought about being an analyst, back in the day, but decided it would probably drive me crazy to hear people stuck in the same story session after session for years…

Luckily, I am not my own teacher. Oh, but wait. I am.

And, indeed, those expectations are my fatal flaw.