Stay

If I were to pick one word to describe yesterday's practice, it would be 'bendy'. Today's word: 'tired'. On Sundays, I start practice at 9:30 in the morning so I've had time to walk the dog, drink tea, and loll around a bit. Also, the shala was like an *oven* yesterday. It was awesome! This morning, I started at my usual time, 6 a.m., and it felt like every muscle in my body was aching a little bit. I didn't have a lot of stamina.

In my long-winded practice report on Saturday, I made a significant ommission. I forgot probably the most important part: Laghu Vajrasana. I've been Laghu Vajrasana-ing like crazy lately. Early last week, DT suggested that I come down and come up at least 5 times in a row. I've been doing that, then repeating until I can't do it anymore. So five 'chicken pecks' (As Owl likes to call them), then a short rest. And again. And again. I do about three sets of five. By that point, I'm so exhausted that I'm shaking a little bit, then I go on to do Kapotasana like a good little masochist.

Every practice is hard right now, but there's almost always an 'easter egg' hidden somewhere in that two-hour time frame. Yesterday, the egg was in Laghu. I had just finished going up and down and up and down for the kazillionth time (okay, the 9th), when DT stopped by said: "That's good! It's looking much better!" Somewhere in my fuzzed-out Laghu stupor, I acknowledged her, then continued chicken pecking.

It was a great moment, because DT almost never does that. If she observes that I'm getting the hang of something or a pose has reached a new level, she just gets busy making it harder for me.

Today's 'easter egg' was Bakasana B. I've been landing it fairly consistently on the third or fourth try. When I filmed it last Friday at home, I observed that when I jump into it, I always *have* it, but I don't *keep* it. Same thing happened today. I jumped into it, then popped my toes to the floor.

I've learned something important in hot yoga, from practising standing balances. In Bikrams, these balances are long holds and I realised that once I *have* the balance, I need to make a decision to *stay* for the duration.

In other words, I need to decide that I'm NOT going to fall out. No matter what, no matter how much I wobble or how silly I look.

So today I decided: no matter how ugly my Bakasana was, no matter how unstable I felt, I would jump into Bakasana and I would STAY. And I did. And I nailed it. Oh yeah, it was ugly, but I was there for five breaths and *that* part was beautiful!



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