Sometimes letting go is just not pretty...

I've been sick with something, don't know what, thought it was a gastro flu virus which 3 of us in the house had, but then it kept on so took some anti-biotics, then it kept on and took some pro-biotics...now I'm just not sure what's going on! 

Obviously being in Mysore, the 'letting go' capital of the world, people are fast to jump to the conclusion that when you are sick in the stomach it's your body trying to get rid of something that is not good for it, that it doesn't want anymore. A few weeks back I had a session of 'Rolfing' after being advised by a yoga teacher that it was amazing. I went and gave my details to the girl along a list of stuff going on with my body, tight left shoulder, dodgy knees, relentlessly tight hips. She worked for 1.5 hours on my ankles, IT bands, knees and hips and later on that evening I was pretty sore around those areas. That night I had a rumbling in the stomach and had to dash to the bathroom with severe diarrhoea. But it wasn't just once, it went on and on, until the point where I had no control over it and 'let go' all over the kitchen and bathroom floor... :( 

Despite my bedroom only being 5 metres away from the bathroom, I had to have a bucket next to my bed for the rest of the night. Big sigh. I spent the next hour on my hands and knees cleaning my own crap up off the floor with 2 rolls of tissue paper...half naked...in the dark... Thankfully it was the middle of the night and somehow I managed to maintain a small semblance of dignity. The next day I had to explain to the housemaid who's english isn't great that I had been 'sick' over the kitchen and bathroom floor and when she saw the bucket, well, she didn't speak to me for 3 days. (Actually, thank god she didn't, trying to get through to her using the english language is like trying to get blood from a stone...my own english is going downhill drastically here with everyone speaking with badly strung together sentences of random words!! Anyway, I digress...) 

But here's the strange part....Somehow I managed to drag myself to class the next morning, expecting a poor practice and instead I had the most open hips ever! Postures which had been killing me like baddha konasana, upavistha konasana and eka pada sirsasana seemed like I had been practicing them for years (well I have but with little progress). Finally some space has appeared in the joints which I hadn't felt before and I can feel what it feels like to have open hips, which I can continue to work on slowly each day. I'm still suffering with some discomfort in the hips, but for christ's sake, I have 35 years of crap to clear out!! 

Unfortunately I cannot be sure what is was that caused this opening...it could have been the rolfing, it could've been the diarrhoea, it could have been having to clean my crap up off the kitchen floor, or it could have been just continuous, dedicated practice over a long period of time. Nevertheless, I like all 4 reasons equally!!

Giving it all up....

5 weeks to go until I give up every thing I've been used to over the past 7 years, my house, good job, steady income, stability, routine... to concentrate on my Ashtanga Yoga practice for 1 year. Nothing else to get in the way, just me and my practice in new surroundings throughout the world.

But I have to admit, The thought is keeping me up at night...I'm not sleeping more than 4 hours per night, the rest of the night is me, my mind and impending scenarios, stories, of what is yet to happen. Am I really worried or is it the current practice of second series which is sending my mind (notwithstanding my hips) completely out of control? 

I've given up my morning meditation practice as I'm driving myself crazy. I'm running from the reality of what I have chosen for myself. So what now? The only thing I can think of is to turn to Patanjali, the sutras.. 

Yoga Sutra 1:31:

~ Dukha-daurmanasya-angameja-yatva-shvasa-prasvasa viksepa sahabhuvah ~

- When they (sickness, apathy, doubt, carelessness, laziness, sexual indulgence, delusion, lack of progress and inconsistency) arise once may experience distress, depression, or the inability to maintain steadiness of posture or breathing.

duhka, grief

daurmanasya, anxiety, worry

angamejayatva, unsteadiness of the body

shvasa prashvasa, irregular inspiration and expiration

visepa-sahabhuvah, (are) accompaniments of distractions

But no, I'm not being able to rest in the hear and now Patanjali, I'm stressed, I can hardly practice without thinking constantly throughout and worrying about leaving behind the stable life I had. Giving up what is perceived as a comfortable life is difficult. I'm stressing out, my mother's worried that I'll have a nervous breakdown before I even leave...and then there's the extra worry of leaving my Mum on top of everything else.... But it's only 1 year Mum, one year out of hopefully 60+ years we'll have together. That's what I keep telling her....

There is nothing else I want to do in my life at this very moment than what I have been planning for, for the past 18 months. It will be done, but mentally these next 5 weeks are going to be mentally effing hard.

"LET GO"

I've recently been concentrating a lot on the breath as the means of deepening my yoga postures. I realised that I've been straining and struggling to get into them and hold them, using all the RI (reciprocal inhibition) and PNF (proprio-neuro-facilitation) cues I could find....the result being I've over-stretched my hamstring / glut and have been in discomfort for a while now.

These cues are great, don't get me wrong and I actively use and recommend them to students as ways to deepen the postures and learn engagement of the correct muscles. However, I have been over doing them, they should be used sparingly, very sparingly, maybe just once a week even....

The one thing which I have realised that I have not been doing is letting the breath do its work. Funny eh? The only thing that makes the practice yoga. I've been rushing the in breath and  I'd noticed it was half the length of the exhale. So I've double its length, in fact, I'm breathing the entire length of the natural inhalation, man it's long...I note the top of the inhale, then let go.....the exhale comes naturally; freedom, surrender, the natural path of the breath. The lengthening of the inhalation gives me physical length in the spine and a greater softness in the muscles but more importantly has given me back the natural ability to really LET GO. 

So as new year dawns once again, along with those wishes for new beginnings and renunciation of bad habits, the negative and destructive samskaras, I suggest you take a few seconds to watch your in breath and begin to lengthen it to its full capacity in order that you can find the real space to "let go", both within and without, in 2013. 

Peace

Mx