This morning's practice I felt as though I was, to borrow from a southern friend of mine, moving through cotton.
I was stiff. Really stiff.
I could easily blame it on those divine bourbon and gingers on Friday night or the 6 minute mile I ran paced by the MetroBus on Friday morning, but I think blaming either of those would be nothing more than excuses.
Today's practice just generally happened - 5 Sun As, 5 Sun Bs and just moved through my practice with general resistance of both my shoulders and hips. I felt moderately strong, just couldn't translate strength into flexibility. As I moved into Kurmasana, I could feel D beginning to hover. "Great," I thought, "I'm stiff, there's no way I'm getting Supta Kurmasana today. D is going to push and stuff me into position like an overstuffed pillow, doomed to dramatically spill out of my seams." I could feel a cry of agony already welling up in my throat.
Then I found myself at SK. Normally D or K will push my left shoulder under my left leg, right shoulder under right leg and cross my ankles. Then my arms will be pulled so that my fingertips just graze each other, I'll take one breath and my ankles will uncross but my hands will be clasped. They will recross my ankles and my hands will spring apart. On multiple occasions D has expressed that he thinks I theoretically have the flexibility for this pose - I'm inclined to agree with him.
D calmly walked over, got my legs into position, put his hand on the middle of my back and told me, "Relax. Stop fighting the pose." Grasped my hand pulled them together and I clasped them. I started to feel every limb spring apart. He returned his hand to my back lightly pressed and rocked me back and forth, "Relax." I think there was a little bit of pleased laughter there.
And he walked away.
Leaving me, relaxed, bound, and stunned.
We all have our tar-babies, whether they are poses or something else, when you stop fighting and relax, the solution appears and it's fairly simple to get unstuck. (And more often than not, the result is quite surprising .)
Moral of this story. Just relax.
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3 comments:
Good morning!
As for me, it does not matter whether I am relaxed or tense in SK - I still hate it with all the fibers of my being. :D
Good to know I'm not alone in this. :)
Of course I cannot have an opinion on SK... ;P but I have realized that the 'relax' recipe is excellent for almost anything (yoga, dancing, and pretty much any sport/physical activity). The hard thing is... it's difficult to remember, when we get to those 'tough spots'... Good to have D to remind you! :)
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