Yoga, Flow, and Muffins

I met Kerry for the first time at Women in the Woods several months before we moved to Arden. She was passing out the most wonderful muffins I had ever tasted. (The secret is the toasted millet.) She told me she taught yoga at the Buzz. I stalked Kerry when I got back home. (I got her email off the Buzz website and used it for the nefarious, non-yoga purpose of procuring the muffin recipe.) She graciously sent me the recipe via snail mail, and I was pretty giddy to make a whole batch of the muffins.  I was also excited to be moving to a place where yoga classes were available less than a quarter mile away from my new house.

After I moved to Arden, I had every intention of checking out Kerry's class, but I was intimidated. In spite of the fact that I have done yoga on and off since I first took a class in college, I find even the most basic poses a challenge. I am the one for whom the instructors provide the modifications. The problem, and also the reason I need yoga more than the average person, is that I am the least flexible female I have ever encountered. I don't mean to judge myself or compare, but when you are at one end of the spectrum, you can't help but notice. I am the one who is grabbing for any prop available even if it is for simply touching my toes. I should probably even use blocks under my hands for staff pose, though I usually fake that one. Yoga also forces me to acknowledge such things as my weight gain, which further limits my range of motion in some poses. So, even though I come out of a yoga class more elastic than I went in, I have to face a lot of my physical limitations along the way, and that is disheartening in a practice that is supposed to, among other goals, open your heart.

Kerry kept encouraging me and eventually, I came to her class.  It was every bit of a challenge for me emotionally, mindfully, as well as physically, but I loved it, and my body responded to it. Even so, I had to force myself to go to yoga every single time, which is silly. I always experienced such a high after class, in part because it was such a challenge for me. That carrot didn't always work, and  sometimes, I couldn't find the will to go. I missed a class. And then one missed week turned into two, which led to a month, and I knew that reentry would be an even bigger challenge. I let my insecurities win. Kerry's class sizes started to dwindle at the same time she experienced a health crisis, so she took a hiatus from teaching.

I was bummed. Even though I wasn't going to class at the time, I wanted it to exist as possibility. I signed up for a block of yoga classes at a more distant venue. I knew if I didn't sign up for a large number of classes that I would never force myself to get in the car and drive to class. And I know how much I need it. When I come out of yoga class I notice how much easier it is to do simple things such as turn and look over my shoulder when backing out of a parking space. I wonder how much of life I am missing because my lack of mobility limits my actions.

Today I struggled in class. My back was tighter than even its normal rigidity when I entered the studio. Sherri led us through poses, and I made my normal allowances. But then we got to a kneeling pose in which we were supposed to flex our toes, bending them backwards under our body weight in order to stretch out the bottoms of our feet. My toes wouldn't budge, and I exclaimed as much. I wanted to sob. Even my frickin' toes are inflexible! Crying is something that happens to me sometimes in yoga. If I do manage to loosen up my muscles, sometimes the emotions stored in those tight places release themselves in all kinds of ways. I have been known to weep during shavasana. But this threat of tears today came from my frustration over the inability to make my body move. I feel almost paralyzed.

I know that my body craves yoga more than once a week, and that some of my issues would lessen with repeated mat time. But the once a week practice I am doing now is such a radical form of self-love that anything more seems like scaling a ten foot wall and jumping off the other side--emotionally at least.

I visited Kerry briefly the other day and know that she is struggling right now with her own body's limitations as she works to regain her health. I can't imagine how frustrating that must be for someone whose livelihood and identity flow from her physical body. I am awed by the way she is handling her illness. Even in crisis, she manages to inspire and teach. Maybe her purpose has less to do with the physical body than I imagined. For me, someone who is inside her head most of the time, maybe my purpose has more physical ties than I want to admit. Let it flow is a mantra that can work for writers and yoga practitioners alike. It is a practice of allowing and letting go. This, I think, is my assignment for this cycle. Allowing my body to open up. Allowing my novel to evolve. Allowing my children to make their own way in the world even if it means watching them stumble. It may involve some tears and setbacks. It may involve pushing myself into positions that are uncomfortable. It may involve working through, around, and over my limitations--perceived and actual. And it may also involve muffins. Some really conscious, millet-studded muffins. Namaste.