Sunday, January 4, 2009

Yoga

Yoga never has been in my comfort zone. I do it more in my head than in my body. Practicing alone, doesn’t feel right because I make to many mistakes even if I and my body try to remember the exercise I did while being guided. I trust the teacher, and hope not to be in the way for the other practitioners. I feel not safe with a different teacher.
When I come in and sit down on the bolster, after no more than 3 minutes my back aches. Most positions actually hurt. Not because of strain or effort in trying to do what is going on. I keep, however, going back to yoga, because when at the end of the class I sit on the bolster, my back doesn’t hurt after three minutes. So I know immediately that it works for me. I wonder what kind of ‘hurt’ the others feel, whether everything hurts or nothing. The passive poses are usually ok, for a while. Some exercises will break out hidden emotions. It happened with the tailbone exercises, when a dark sorrow pervaded me and in a different way also with the sitting bones exercises. Sometimes the physical reaction is extreme. After the tailbone exercises I was cold, chilled too the bone, feeling as if my eyes were brimming with tears. Then suddenly it seemed as if a switch was flipped about 5 and a half hours after I came home and slowly I warmed up.
My body in turmoil, my mind reflective, I wasn’t sure I could do the integration of the two sessions, so I integrate them here for you.

2 comments:

  1. Yoga is best done as a mental exercise, under self-hypnosis. Contemplating the various positions and movements, while visualizing oneself participating, eliminates any discomfort or pain. In fact, if properly contemplated, great joy and happiness and instant gratification can result from even the most difficult contortions, resulting in pleasure approaching orgasm merely by the insertion of one's left little toe in one's right ear while standing on one's head and stretching one's left leg behind one's neck, the Imagonnagetoffupsidedown position. Restricting yoga to a mental exercise yields only pleasurable effects, and has the added benefit of being able to be practiced at any time and in any place, even in a crowded underground or while attending a boring lecture or play. My new book, 'Yoga For Thinkers' will be out soon.

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  2. hehe, jij ook aan de yoga? zelf vind ik yoga fan-tas-tisch! lees mijn blogje!

    yasmin

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