| Sometimes between classes, I roll out my yoga mat and practice in my dining room. It's always choppy, because it takes me a while between poses to think of what to do next. That's one of the things I love about my daily classes--the instruction, someone telling me what to do next and how to get there. My repertoire of asanas has increased over the past 3 weeks, but I have trouble moving my body and digging into my memory at the same time. Which is part of the point--being able to move without thinking too much, to concentrate on my breath and posture. Today's Happy Hour Vinyasa with Dean, on the other hand, was great and super flowy, full of his creative transitions. I felt more consistently stable than usual, which allowed me to really open up in some poses, to stretch my collar bone wide in my twists and triangles. Such a great feeling. A buzz. At one point near the end, the song Say Something by Great Big World and Christina Aguilera came on and I felt a different |

energy come over me, partly inspired by the music I think and partly by the confidence I had built over the course of the practice. I felt… dancey! My flow actually flowed. Instead of moving step-wise through a series of poses, I felt like I was truly flowing from one movement to the next, inspired by heart energy, emotional energy. Each movement continued to feel strong, but it was soft, too, ready to transform into something else, from something else. It felt really awesome and beautiful until I realized how just how enthusiastic I must look, got a teensy bit self-conscious and almost took a little face-plant tumble in a standing split. But I left class still buzzing and carrying that novel energy with me--that feeling of physical intuition.
When I got home, I took care of the normal business of life--phone calls, mail, dinner, all that. Through all of it, and despite my buzz, I remained slightly preoccupied with the chance that I'll be offered a new job sometime in the coming week. Do I want it? Do I want to leave what I love for something unpredictable? In talking a bit with my very wise and thought-provoking mom, I added a new question to the mix: am I afraid of standing still in one place? Should I be? Was this new job opportunity merely meant to foster a deeper appreciation for what I already have? So many questions with so many pros and cons and subtexts. And I know, I firmly and deeply believe, that the answer doesn't live in the language--the mind-chatter and rumination. But how do I access the quiet, still part of me that knows what's best?
I rolled my mat out on the dining room floor and searched spotify for the song that inspired my body during class. As it played, my brain got quieter and my body took more control, moving from pose to pose naturally, without thought and with, if I do say so myself, some beauty and grace. Strong reaching backbend, deep forward fold, flat back, forward fold. Plank, chaturanga, down dog, high lunge, standing split, breathe, breathe, breathe. Then right into warrior III, and tree, half moon, close. Breathe, don't think, feel, focus on breath, balance the poses on the other side. There wasn't the thought of movement and stability, there was just the movement and stability, with the music, with the breath. A difficult sequence, fueled and sustained by something wise and strong inside of me that had no use for planning or weighing the pros and cons of each muscle firing, each limb extending.
It's been my experience so far that what starts on the mat generalizes quite organically into life. I don't know yet what the song will be to inspire my next move--from this job to that one, or deeper into the one I already have--but I trust that the song will come, and with it, the dance.
When I got home, I took care of the normal business of life--phone calls, mail, dinner, all that. Through all of it, and despite my buzz, I remained slightly preoccupied with the chance that I'll be offered a new job sometime in the coming week. Do I want it? Do I want to leave what I love for something unpredictable? In talking a bit with my very wise and thought-provoking mom, I added a new question to the mix: am I afraid of standing still in one place? Should I be? Was this new job opportunity merely meant to foster a deeper appreciation for what I already have? So many questions with so many pros and cons and subtexts. And I know, I firmly and deeply believe, that the answer doesn't live in the language--the mind-chatter and rumination. But how do I access the quiet, still part of me that knows what's best?
I rolled my mat out on the dining room floor and searched spotify for the song that inspired my body during class. As it played, my brain got quieter and my body took more control, moving from pose to pose naturally, without thought and with, if I do say so myself, some beauty and grace. Strong reaching backbend, deep forward fold, flat back, forward fold. Plank, chaturanga, down dog, high lunge, standing split, breathe, breathe, breathe. Then right into warrior III, and tree, half moon, close. Breathe, don't think, feel, focus on breath, balance the poses on the other side. There wasn't the thought of movement and stability, there was just the movement and stability, with the music, with the breath. A difficult sequence, fueled and sustained by something wise and strong inside of me that had no use for planning or weighing the pros and cons of each muscle firing, each limb extending.
It's been my experience so far that what starts on the mat generalizes quite organically into life. I don't know yet what the song will be to inspire my next move--from this job to that one, or deeper into the one I already have--but I trust that the song will come, and with it, the dance.
Photo Credit: Yoga-Kamala via Pinterest