Saturday, March 27, 2010

Day 86: Why not Today?

I had a great day today, spent mostly in the sunshine with good friends, good food, and good conversation. I dragged myself away to go the last class of the day at my studio.

This past week, at class, I often found myself drifting off, not thinking about anything, really, but not really present either. Just spaced out, and coming to with, "wow, did we already do a set of half-tortoise?" What is going on?! I'm on some kind of blissed out autopilot. Is this good or bad? I'm not sure, but it's been interesting.

Today, I felt fairly present, and the room was hot and very humid, and the little voices of worry and fear and excuses started speaking to me: "It's really hot. I'm so hot, and I probably didn't hydrate enough. I ate a lot today, so I need to take it easy. My leg muscles are tired." And so on. But I was going through the motions, listening to my teacher and doing her bidding. When she said, "Push your hips, push, push," during half moon, I pushed. When she said, "Lock your knee!" I locked my damn knee! I was trying to stick with it all and put effort into each posture, but the the little chorus of the usual excuses kept singing to me.

I was about halfway through the first side and first set of standing bow when I realized that I almost always start to give up on the posture at about that point. Too often, I listen to that voice that tells me to "save" my energy for some other posture, that I can try really hard on some other day, that some time when I have a lot of energy, then I'll give it my all and try to do it perfectly for the full allotment of time. So I had to answer that voice today, and ask, "Why not now? Why not today? When will the perfect time be?"

So I had to keep trying, to keep putting all my effort and energy into it.

It's so simple, but so difficult, this business of being present, being aware.

And I can't believe that we only have a couple of weeks left in the 101 Challenge.

1 comment:

  1. Good post! I totally get it--that blissed-out autopilot feeling might make the class go easier, but I don't think there's the same sense of satisfation when it's over. And the "when will the perfect time be" question is the perfect one to ask to push through the moments of doubt :-)

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