So I found out today that I'll probably be wrapping up PT right before we go to Vegas in March. I had mixed feelings about this. Part of me was like, "Are you kidding, two weeks more of this crap? I have better stuff to do, etc." The other part wants it to continue indefinitely, and here's why.
Of all the times I have been to PT, this is the place I've liked the best. I think because their focus is more on brain injury than sports medicine. Every other place I've gone, it's like they SAY "oh we're not just for athletes," but there's almost a tough love vibe like, "20 more reps, you pantywaist; go team!" It reminds me of this one therp, at a facility that shall remain nameless, who, as I lay on my back, pinned my shoulders flat on the mattress, held them there, and then let go. They sprung back up and rounded in. My muscles along my collarbones and in my chest were so tight. He pinned them back down again and said, "You know, if we could just put you in a brace to hold them like that for six months..." I must have muttered something like "yeah..." but what I was really thinking was, "oh yes, a brace will fix EVERYTHING, jackass. Stop touching me."
This place is not like that. I would describe the atmosphere as one of pleasant determination, rather than tough "love" or false cheerleading. I feel comfortable with my body there. If I am struggling with something that seems basic, there is someone else struggling with something that seems basic. If I am moving in a non-standard way, someone else is as well.
Now, I have the feeling this is how I'm supposed to feel at yoga, which I told my therp that I am going back to on Friday. In yoga you are supposed to "meet yourself where you are." But I have a very difficult time doing that. I'm always comparing myself to others, and I usually come out wanting. Or I am focusing on what I think the teacher wants, and I hurt myself. I am told time and again, that the teacher doesn't want anything, that no one is looking at me and judging, but I just don't believe it. It's not like I go to a yoga studio that's packed wall to wall with gym princesses or anything. It's just that I'm surrounded by lithe, supple, balanced bodies. There are some asanas I will never be able to do, because of the as-yet-undiagnosed brain damage I just call "my balance thing." I came out that way, just like with the blindness. I don't know how much it can ever improve. I do know that I was subject to humiliating pull-out sessions in my mainstreamed school, which took place in public spaces, like school halls, to work on my balance.
I know I still walk funny and I know I still hold my head funny and I am always, in public, excruciatingly self-conscious about it. A friend brought it up the other day as a kind of joke and I was like {cricket cricket} not funny. I can use humor to diffuse a lot, but not this.
Will I ever be able to meet myself where I am? How can yoga teachers do more to facilitate this? How can I?
I don't know, but it has stopped storm storm storming outside and the sun is trying to come back. Trying but failing but trying. And it's time to rest my spine now. Ow.
I have a feeling if you take more with the fine gentleman we are taking with Friday, that will help the lighthearted and the accepting. Also with KR, who declares every time it is part of the kriya that she does not do headstand. And it is ok to not do headstand. I was all excited when I did, and then I realized - it's just a pose out of many poses. There will always be a pose to work on, and there will always be poses that you worked on and improved.
ReplyDeleteAnd now you've given me another idealet of what to do with my evolving yoga study.
Second comment, because this was in my head during this morning's ablutions. It may evolve into my own blog post, but I'm thinking about it in response to what you said, so it belongs here.
ReplyDeleteSo. "What I'm supposed to feel at yoga." That's more complex than just "meeting myself where I am." That's just one of ten ideas called the yamas (outward observances) and the niyamas (personal observances). So when we talk about accepting things as they are and being content, ahimsa (outward) and santosa (inward), we are talking yoga. But when we are talking about effort, heat, fire, exploring our limits to find out whether they truly are our limits, we are also talking about yoga. That's a different niyama -- tapas: inner fire, engaging enthusiastically with life.
I think the reason we hear more about accepting things as they are is because as Westerners, we strive quite a lot. We get out of bed, take classes, apply for jobs, meet new people, write poems, make art, push ourselves to jog one more mile or do one more set of reps or hold that pose just 30 more seconds. We need to balance that, and for most people balance comes in relaxing and letting things be. But without that tapas, we wouldn't come to yoga class in the first place! So it's okay, even necessary, to effort. Keep efforting, just do so in a kind, thoughtful, skillful way to create well-thought-out change.
Katherine, thank you so much for your words of awesomeness... I can tell you are already learning so much (re: teaching) because you have so many good things to say. {big hug}
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