I made it out for a short ride yesterday morning. Cycling on Oahu isn’t great — there is a lot of traffic and very few back roads. But one of the nicer rides is the Tantalus/Round Top loop, which is right behind where I live. This is the view from the top.
I could feel the ride in my practice this morning: IT bands a bit tight. But it all worked itself out.
Off to chinatown for some vegetables!
H’s visit seems a long time ago now, although it hasn’t even been a month since he departed. After some low days, I seem to have gotten back into work mode. Work mode is busy, not feeling too much, pleasure from task completion, underlying anxiety about many undone tasks, pleasure from social interactions but an underlying slight social awkwardness that comes from feeling disconnected and, therefore, self-conscious. Although I am well-practiced in this state of affairs, it’s not particularly good for me. Everything is a bit more fun with H around, and I feel more at ease. Working on plans for my next trip to CA in May. Maybe I’ll get back in time to use the *new toy* that H got me yesterday! There was a gear swap and look what he found! Such a thoughtful fellow.
I had a good week of practice and, as anticipated, I am now working through Titibasana. My body can make the shapes, but oh! the quads! they burn… CL said that mula bandha was particularly important here or you lose all your energy. I think I must have forgotten it yesterday because I turned into a little puddle after exiting from C.
But tomorrow is Saturday! And I have still uninitiated bike pedals that I got when H was here. So, it is high time for a bike ride.
In Kapotasana, Glen says, “Once you’re in the pose, stop doing stuff. Just breathe.”
Oh!
Silly wombat.
Well, it’s been a while since I posted here, and my last post still makes me sad.
Just a Sunday today: practice, blueberry coffee cake, laundry, produce shopping in chinatown, a few errands, big salad at 4pm that I suppose will count for lunch and dinner (esp with the two helpings of coffee cake…).
I practiced this morning through dwi padi shirshasana, although on Friday, CL threatened that the yoganidrasana and titibasana would be forthcoming this week. Just when I was getting the hang of things! Some interesting goings-on in the body, though. I’ve found the lift in kapo, so that I can get half-way up my feet without assistance now. And finding that lift (from hollowing the belly, rotating the thighs inward — perhaps this is the elusive nutation of the sacrum?) also changes the preceding backbends. In other backbend changes, CL went around a couple weeks ago tucking in chins in backbends: my! what a great idea! With all these interesting changes, my practice is full of effort right now. From danurasana through the LBHs, it’s focused and a bit fierce; I’ll need to find some softness in there if I’m going to make it through the titibasanas. Kapo is getting less exhausting and scary, but bakasana B? Still catching my breath after the two twists.
On Friday, I participated in a benefit event (A Prayer for Japan), which was my first experience with large numbers of sun salutations – an order of magnitude more than usual. One of the neat things was that we were accompanied by Kenny Endo, an improvisational taiko drummer (and he and an amazing ukulele player, Jake Shimabukuro, performed a concert afterwards). I have mixed feelings about events like this, but the experience of doing 108 sun salutations was very interesting. I don’t think my spine has every felt so fluid. I was surprised that I didn’t get tired. I worried that my form would deteriorate and that I might tweak my shoulders, but that didn’t happen. Perhaps to help prevent this, the style of sun salute was varied for each set of 27 as the count switched among 4 teachers from the sponsoring studios: only the first set by CL was the traditional ashtanga suryanamaskara A. I don’t participate in the “yoga community” much, aside from chatting after class with a few shala-mates, so this was a nice experience in that way, too. As for my mixed feelings about these kinds of events, I suppose there are many. First, there is a monetary part: this is the tiniest token, and I’m not even sure that these kinds of donations are appropriate for a first-world disaster. Certainly, inter-governmental assistance providing helicopters, search and rescue teams, generators, etc is all totally appropriate and critical. But $10-20k to a wealthy country? This simply can’t go very far — $15k doesn’t buy in Japan what it does in Haiti. But putting money aside, we are sending our prayers to Japan. Thus, the 108 sun salutations. And here’s where my skepticism kicks in: I enjoyed doing the 108 sun salutations and I did them with a sincere heart, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t do a thing for folks in Japan. This leads me to the conclusion that this event really isn’t for the Japanese tsunami victims, it’s for us, the participants. It’s to assuage our sense of powerlessness, to reinforce our own community, and to do something fun in the name of meaningfulness. And it was fun: the performances were great, the donated food was great, the community showing was great. But there is also something a bit voyeuristic about it. I certainly acknowledge the special relationship between Hawaii and Japan, but this is a tragedy thousands of miles away and, somehow, we want to participate in it. This strikes me as both compassionate and voyeuristic.
Well, there are many more things to say — H was here for the month of March, and we had several adventures! A ride up and down Haleakala, a hike over the Ko’olau range, and backpacking on Mauna Loa. All great! For now, though, I’ll just post a few photos.
