Saturday, May 9, 2009

With/Without

Operation Get-to-Ventura-and-take-a-yoga-class: success

It took me forever to get there yesterday, but I made it to the 4pm class in Ventura last night and the 11am this morning and had two awesome classes.  It felt ridiculously good to practice again (and I was decently strong, for me, but I was also super bendy, which was a pleasant surprise).  I missed a total of 3 days of yoga this week - HARDLY a catastrophe - but I missed it so much.  Couldn't focus, couldn't settle down, couldn't sleep, couldn't wake up.  Pretty weird! 

I was stretching out before class this morning, doing a couple backbends, and the woman on the mat next to me asked how long I'd been practicing.  I told her I'd been coming regularly for almost 2 years now (and by the way, when the hell did that happen?!) and she said "wow, so have you seen a lot of benefits?"  All I could think of to say was, "YES."

The truth is, I don't even know where I would be right now or what I would be like without this yoga in my life.  All the neuroses I would still be holding on to, all the bad habits and patterns... how bad would they be?  Which problems have I eliminated by doing this yoga, and which ones am I just constantly holding at bay?  That's a slightly unsettling idea.  One thing Bikram always says is that the yoga is only a "cure" for disease in the sense that, if you do it consistently, it will relieve your symptoms, and if you stop doing it, your symptoms will come back.

It's not like I had an awful life without yoga, but without going into detail, I have to say that it is a lot better with the yoga.  I'm not really interested in me-without-yoga.  Sure, I could definitely live without it.  I could also live without showering or brushing my teeth.  But that would just be unpleasant for everyone.  With is definitely better.  It's a good life.  :)

4 comments:

Dorothy said...

Cool that you got to a class! I took a class that the owner of the Ventura studio taught (Drew) here in Vegas. I've only seen pictures of the Ventura studio, but it looks pretty cool. I hope you can practice at your home studio again before too long though.

thedancingj said...

Small world! I took Drew's class this morning. :) He's a lot of fun, and his studio is super nice and clean. Every time I'm there he's showing off his air filters to me or something.

Looks like my studio will be open for business in the morning, yippee! I might go in early to help vacuum in case it is covered with ash... :-/

Duffy Pratt said...

Yoga restores balance. Without it, life slips out of balance. It only makes sense that whichever way we slipped before, we would be likely to slip again.

I don't see that necessarily as holding demons at bay, but it pretty much amounts to the same thing.

thedancingj said...

Very true Duffy - I think that is sort of the positive angle on the same idea. :)