ALMOST DISCOURAGED (but not quite)

Well, after my post earlier this week, I did 2 practices in my home (with Christina online).  Both times, I felt weak and that same gripping was present.  The backbends were less than pretty.

Rather than give up (thanks to Rory Regina), I went back out this morning.  Not that I planned to do the backbend, but rather that I wanted to spend a full 90 minutes on the mat. The side benefit to all this is that I am feeling stronger, better able to practice many poses.  I stuck to the plan -- 90 minutes leading to Mermaid (again with Christina).  While my mermaid was a bit lacking, as I lay on the mat I decided to try the urdhva (backbend) again -- 3 times.  Higher, higher, higher.  No gripping, focusing on keeping elbows close together.

After the third, I rested with a smile on my face.  I CAN do it; I CAN'T give up.

Other news from the week -- I've started a 2-part webinar with Doug Keller.  Great stuff and worth every penny to hear him speak.  Granted this type of learning takes a bit of discipline -- you have to listen, you can't ask questions (during the presentation), but I still learn and I have access to the recording(s) for many months to come.  So, if I missed something, I'll be able to go back and review.  And, coincidentally, this webinar focuses on backbends.

About questions, I am reminded of the workshop I attended many years ago with Donna Farhi.  Unless her tune has changed, she had strong feelings about questions during workshops (as in, don't ask because you already know the answer).  Now that philosophy sounds harsh, but it does make one think. This poem, which came from her website, about sums it up:

I beg you . . . . to have patience with

everything unresolved in your heart

and try to love the questions themselves

as if they were locked rooms or books

written in a foreign language. Don’t search

for the answers, which could not be given you

now, because you would not be able

to live them. And the point is, to live

everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps

then, some day far in the future, you will gradually

without ever knowing it,

live your way into the answers.

– Rilke

I am rambling -- going from topic to topic.  Must be the effect of the backbends.  

Hope you have a great Saturday!