Another Yoga Story

So, in yoga today, there I was, lying on my back, ready to do the next pose the teacher was announcing, a restorative back bend in which you lift your hips, place the block underneath your sacrum (sp.? I hear lots of word in yoga I never hear or read elsewhere) and allow your body to rest while the block is propping your hips up. It was pretty far into the class, and my limbs were relaxed and heavy. I felt serene, also a little exhausted from all the flowing up and down movement we had already done. But when I looked around, I realized I didn't have a block. I turned my head to the left and saw that the guy next to me had two. He was reaching for one of them and looking over at me. I wanted to ask him if I could have the other one, which was farther away, and I was also trying to figure out how I could reach it without disrupting my comfortable stillness. Then I realized he was offering me the block in his hand, holding it out to me with a questioning look in his eyes. It was an oddly intimate moment, as if we were in bed together. Mostly in yoga you kind of ignore the fact that there are these moments when you are lying down next to someone you don't know, someone who might be of the other sex (or the sex you are attracted to), and that you are bending and stretching your body in ways that might be interesting to that other person (and vice versa). You don't usually make eye contact. But there we were, turning our faces toward each other, communicating with our eyes.


3/4/07 Edited to add a missing "a" in one of my sentences--it was bothering me!

Why Didn't I Think of That?

Earlier this week, after my cardio-dance/yoga class, I was sitting downstairs in the tiny little office/sitting room of the dance studio. I was all dressed but not quite ready to go back out into the night and make my way home. Most everyone else had left. My yoga teacher asked me how I was doing. I told her that I had been feeling down, partly, I thought, because I had been sick. And because of the weather. And other things. Because she seemed to want to listen, I told her a few things that were going on and how I had been feeling. She listened attentively, and then said, "It's really important, when you're feeling like that and you're sick and it's winter, to eat fresh food--fruits and vegetables."

I felt grateful to have a piece of advice so simple and so easy to act on. It's true, I don't eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, and certainly not in the winter. So I had some fruit with my lunch the next day.

I still felt pretty bad, though, even after the fruit. (I guess you have to do these things continuously, not just for one day!) At night, when I arrived at the place where I teach, I talked to one of my colleagues who is a friend. Putting my head down on his desk, I said I felt terrible, that I was sick and depressed and I had a headache. He said, "It's a good idea to try to get outside during the day, get some light and air, even if it's cold."

I thought back over the day, the past few days, in fact. Had I gone outside during the day? No. I hurry to work in the morning, get lunch from the little coffee shop in my building because who wants to go outside when it is so cold, then hurry to whatever I am doing at night: dance, teaching, or home to huddle inside.

So, another piece of good advice from a friend. I felt grateful again. And I have been trying to act on his advice, too, going outside at lunchtime even when it's cold.

And I am dreaming, dreaming, dreaming of spring.

Update

Well, I am still cold, still wearing my ski pants to bed (and for blogging). Tomorrow there is supposed to be a snowstorm of sorts here in the metropolis (or, as the TV weather reports put it, a "mixed bag" of snow, ice, sleet, rain, more snow) but nothing much is happening yet. Even though I love teaching I am hoping for a snow day tomorrow. I am feeling worn down with this February chill.

Yoga takes the chill off a little, as always. Sometimes when my mind is racing and won't stop, when I am trying to go to sleep, for example, the poses and the names for them come into my consciousness and calm me. A favorite pose of mine is arti chandrasana (sp?). It sounds like artichoke but means "half-moon pose." I like thinking about it: how you spring forward out of Warrior Two (virha bidrasana II), rise out of the standing pose as if you were going to fly and then tip forward on the front hand, find the floor (or the block in my case), then let the side of the body blossom open, the other arm reaching for the sky, one leg steady on the floor and one leg reaching back, turned so that both hips face the side of the room, or, as my teacher puts it, mantralike, "shoulder to hip, hip to shoulder."

Moving to my other favorite activity, tonight I spoke to one of my volleyball friends and he said, "Only eight more weeks." I was puzzled; spring is (thank God) less than eight weeks away.
"Until. . . . ?" I asked. "Until volleyball!" he said. "Yes," I said, "that's right, volleyball in April."

I think I can hold on . . . .