Mau (yoga)

“Yoga is not a recipe to follow but a set of tools for one's own inquiry and individual conclusions”

Mauricio Pena

I really don't know enough about yoga to start critiquing teachers (and yet I know enough about yoga to resist critiquing teachers) but I just wanted to make a post about Mau before his classes fade a little from my memory.  Mau was a guest teacher at Elements through the month of July while Adrian and Shane went off and did cool things in foreign lands.  He had a slightly different style from many of the regular Elements teachers, some new ideas (often involving straps) and he led his classes with a warm, self-effacing manner that seemed quite precious as if it flowed from an abundant heart chakra.

I only had about three classes with him and he had dinner with Dom and I twice. Socially he was just the same, thoughtful and a bit shy, quick to laugh.  The least ego-centric yoga person I have met so far I think.  I also liked him because he was pleased to see me and didn't ask (if I was alone) where Dom was.   Dom is very out-going and charismatic, and in our small yoga society (the people we sip mint tea with) I must sometimes seem like Dom's wife rather than a person of my own.

Anyway, I will miss Mau and hope he comes back to Yoga Elements soon.

Wellness

Today my Ayurvedic doctor, Sangeeta Sirinthipaporn, dusted my oily feet with something resembling allspice and declared me healed.


Well not exactly 'healed' per se, but completely relaxed (solar plexus and adrenals) unblocked (bladder meridian) and cleared in a energy flow sense and able to conduct the remaining physical healing on my own.  I felt a bit wobbly and emotional as I said goodbye and wanted to give her a hug but clung stoically to my English stiff upper whatsit.  Which is ironically what got me into trouble in the first place, the tendency to go "no really I am fine" and swallow whatever anguish, anxiety or other unpleasant emotion beginning with A that I deem inappropriate for public consumption.


So I said 'thank you and maybe see you again', and she said 'no probably not because you are fixed you see', and I said 'well I might pop back anyway, cos you know... it's kinda nice having someone put fragrant oil in your hair' and she gracefully peeled my fingers away from her door frame, ushered me into the street and waved cheerfully through the wrought iron gate.


Sangeeta also teaches Ayurveda and I would quite like to study with her, but I do need to get well myself before I start taking on the burden of others' health.  And I don't just mean I need my leg to stop hurting but also the other stuff the anxiety and self-esteem things. 


But that is what I am doing yoga for right?

  http://www.sangeetas.com/

On having a day off (yoga)

I had a day off yoga today, which kind of blew my intention to do a full week (ish Thursday thru Tuesday anyway)  but I learned some things anyway so it is all good.

First I learned that I worry over much about what Dom will think of me.  From the moment I decided not to go to my class (after the third trip to the toilet) to the moment I saw Dom (about two hours later) I worried that he would be disappointed that I had decided not to go to class. I spent that two hours continuously rolling his potential disappointment around in my head and making half-hearted attempts to counteract it from telling myself we would get to spend more time together and that would make him happy, to thinking how I could go shopping on my own to give him that hour and a half of 'alone time' that my skiving out of yoga class would deprive him off if it didn't (make him happy for those of you who can't follow a long sentence).

In the end? He walked out of his class and smiled and said "Decided not to do yoga today? That's fine love" and gave me kiss. 

Realising that all my worries have been more weirdness of my own internal paradigm I examined them.  Basically it went something like: poor Yoga-God Dom stuck with lazy frumpy wife who can't even squeeze her fat lumpy ass into her lycra and do yoga three consecutive days without falling face down into a tub of full fat ice-cream and faking stomach-ache in order to sit on the couch for an extra 15 minutes in the morning. For the record, my stomach issues were genuine and I haven't had ice-cream in ages - but sometimes my self-loathing gets creative. 

There is a lot there but basically my anxiety boils down to a feeling that I am Unworthy and yet oddly married to a man who is Uber-worthy and I am wildly imaginative when worrying what other people think. In fact not only do I do not need evidence that they are having negative thoughts about me I don't even need actual people; I can dedicate days to worrying about what hypothetical people are hypothetically thinking about me. Months.

Dom hates it when I am self-critical so I am now worrying that he will read this post and be disappointed.  I will let it be and trust that he will see the growth, the improved  self-awareness, and the honesty (beneath the gnawing self-hating anxiety) and be hopeful for me.

Or maybe I should stop worrying what he thinks.

Healing

Ha this is what happens when I open this blog to the public eye (i.e. tell my husband about it) I stop posting.  Just kidding, I think I needed some time to do yoga instead of talk about it and as a result of a wonderful week off and daily classes I think I am well on my way to beating the "left leg thing".  I can't say exactly how it happened.  I started seeing an Ayurvedic therapist who oiled my hair and my back and did repeated (often painful) reflexology sessions on my feet.  She also gave me some delicious smelling oil for my head (although I slather it everywhere) and suggested I give up my morning cereal and banish cold from my life.

I also had a proper Thai massage and allowed Dee (who usually does my feet every week) to thoroughly work my leg trying to get all the knots out on my thigh and calf even though it was terribly painful.

And then one morning I simply sat on the floor tried to straighten my leg.  When that wasn't happening I listened to my body and the message I got was that this wasn't about pain but about acute anxiety, bordering on outright panic.  Realising this was very interesting and I was able to relax get my leg down straight for the first time in four months.  A euphoric afternoon followed and I actually enjoyed a walk from Siam to Central Chidlom, not that far but more than I have been willing to do for a while. As it turns out the euphoria was a bit premature but what I discovered was the beginning of a way out of the pain, rather than the end of it.

I have worked harder since then, not only to physically stretch and release the knotted muscles in my leg but also to somehow emotionally stretch and release the anxiety in my chest. Dom helped too by patiently unknotting the residual tangle in my calf that seems to appear every evening.  I am getting there.  I still have work to do, but today for the first time my yoga practice was about the whole of me, and not about my left leg.  The whole of me.  It was lovely.

Thank you to Dom, Sangeeta, my many yoga teachers, Marisa, Dee and of course Shiva for your patience and help in this journey of healing.

Paradise Regained

Rather than thinking how good I would be now if we hadn't quit yoga in 2007 I try and focus on what gifts I have received by losing and regaining paradise a second time. Not only did I find and lose yoga and the flexibility and centeredness that comes with it, but I found and lost most of the more obvious aspects of being in control. I regained all of the weight I had spent the whole of 2004/5 shedding (at least 35lbs, until I find the courage to get back on the scales I won't know for sure). I stopped smoking only to start again in Chiangmai (ok so I quit again Jan 1st 2011) but still it is a long way to go about finding grace.

So what have I gained aside from age, inches and wisdom? Well wisdom is not to be sniffed at when it is the kind steeped in patience and humility.  Gaining control the first time around made me cocky. Having found all the answers I felt entitled to lecture people on how to "improve" themselves. What nonsense when my hold was obviously (in retrospect) so tenuous.  I think maybe we are all recovering life-oholics, just one shot away from once more finding ourselves face down in the [insert excess of your choice here] binge debris.  A continual attitude of watchful awareness, and appreciative presence is necessary to stay grounded. One day at a time. Now, and now, and.  Now.

I also have the chance to learn to love loser-me all over again.  It is easy to love yourself when you are gorgeous and bendy, less so when you swathed in fat and regrets, and held together by overly tight hamstrings and frazzled nerves. I am a mess, and (as my husband keeps telling me) I am still gorgeous.  I am going to make a huge effort to believe him before it is too late and actually am what the rest of the world sees as lovely. Everyone can recognise a diamond cut and polished but only experts can appreciate them in the rough.

Opposite to that and also connected is the lesson that none of this is me, fat or thin, flexible or stiff, winner or loser... it is all ego.  I am other than this - unchanging and yet constantly in flux.

And finally I get to do it all again.  Only better, more firmly and with a finer mind. Last time I blindly raced towards a goal of control, this time I will keep my eyes open and pay attention to the transformation. 

How truly blessed I am.

The left leg thing

One thing that prevented me coming back to yoga earlier was chronic pain in my left leg. I think of it as 'the left leg thing' but as people seem to prefer big sounding reasons (colleagues need reasons for my limp, yoga teachers need reasons for an inability to straighten my leg during forward bends, for example) out-loud I call it sciatica.  In truth I have no idea what it is or what caused it.

Dom (the creator of beginnings remember) says this particular incidence started in April this year as we were walking through the farm. The first time I remember it happening in my leg was coming home after my dad's funeral (April 2009) but prior to that I have had lower back problems and I see it as connected. Anyway it is affecting my ability to embrace yoga this time and so I am investing lots of time energy and money trying to fix it.

In my head there are several myths that have become attached to the left leg thing over time and in the interests of openness I will list them in no significant order and with no relevant explanation (as I am sure they will come later).

• Anger at my mum for being drunk that Christmas (this was the first time my back hurt)
• Years of claiming that my back problems began with the car crash when I was 17 rather than in childhood (above)
• Stress generally and my particular inability to handle it
• A demon living in my left hip
• A connection between opening my left hip my heart chakra 
• Fear and avoidance
• The strong desire to cry during Warrior I
• Sadness at my dad's death
• Holding on to / feeling guilty about the baby I lost
• The sense that I just need to pull myself together and the pain will go away

Back on the mat

I must have started doing yoga at the end of 2006. Oddly enough I don't remember how or why I started or why, out of all the yoga studios in Bangkok, I chose Yoga Elements. I remember my first class though, it was with a young western guy whose name is lost in time (it wasn't Adrian, I didn't get to study with him until my yogic renaissance). All I remember of that first class was he asked how the breathing technique he had just taught us (which I now know is kapalabhati pranayama) made us feel. I shyly raised my hand and said it made me feel sparkly up my spine. He beamed at me as if I had said something wonderful and told us that this technique was in fact also known as 'shining breath' and thus began my suspicion that I am fact a reincarnated yoginni genius trapped in the body of a thirty-something overweight English woman.

I attended several classes and after a week or two persuaded Dom to join. This is officially where my yoga journey started because Dom is the teller of beginnings and thus the creator of them. Now I know enough about yoga and and about myself to know that is okay, but back in 2006 when Dom joined and fell in love his story dominated our practice for the first half of 2007 and it was also the tendency for his passions to somehow eclipse mine that caused the false end of our yoga practice in July that year.

But now, four years older, over 20lbs heavier, considerably stiffer and thankfully much wiser I am back on the mat. Luckily yoga is both a loving and forgiving mistress and she welcomed me with an open heart.