March 25, 2011
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Holy S*&T ~ It only LOOKS Relaxing…
I have been out of Ashtanga for almost two weeks. This is a result of either being on the phone with my lawyer late in the afternoon at my office, or being in a series of meetings GALORE. (Oh and a couple days because the motorcycle fell over in the mud and my right shoulder, knee and ankle hurt but that is another story)
This makes me a big horrible grouch. Well, maybe more of a bitch to be accurate.
So THANK GOD Wednesday night was mysore night. Now I can not do the full primary Ashtanga series yet so I have to stop at Kurmasana, tortoise pose. I was always fascinated by this pose. Bhagavad Gita says “When like the tortoise, which withdraws on all sides its limbs, he (the aspirant) withdraws his senses from the sense-objects. Then wisdom becomes steady. The tortoise symbolizes looking inward, and controlling very carefully what is put out.”
NOW THAT SOUNDS PERFECT! So I always thought the pose looks so relaxing. You are resting your head on the ground, breathing slow and steady, totally going inward. How cool. So instead of embracing the posture, I am hell bent and determined to force myself into the pose. Since it was a mysore class, I asked the instructor to help me. I love this instructor and she WILL get you into the pose if you ask. Holy s*&T! It only LOOKS relaxing. I have tried over and over again to get into the pose but couldn’t get my knees close enough to my shoulders so my legs press down on my elbows and that sucks. It hurts and you cant get your chest down toward the floor that way. So Lori moved my knees toward my ears and pushed me down.
Look, it is bad form to swear during yoga but like a trooper, when I say “oh S-H-I-T” Lori said “are you breathing????”. No, just swearing.
Then after that comes Supta Kurmasana, sleeping tortoise. Yea, I was doing so well with the awake version that the sleeping version seemed appropriate.
But sure enough Lori contoured me further toward supta kurmasana, looking something like this:
This is a huge deal but not even the full expression of the posture which looks like this:
I thought my shoulders were coming out of the joints when she pulled my hands around to get me to bind them behind my back. I pulled my feet as inward as possible but no, they were not above my head although I was damn happy at where they were.
I think my version of tortoise is much like my version of life right now. People are telling me to relax and to breathe and I am trying to struggle my way to get to a place that looks relaxing. Not exactly withdrawing of the senses. Not exactly a road to peace and happiness.
I learn so much about myself on the mat it is amazing. Occasionally, I get into some really fun postures too!
