future worries..as if the present ones aren't enough

Sorry for the long break. It has been quite a fall. I started teaching feldenkrais classes, which has a humbling process in some ways. I was unprepared for the emotional energy required for teaching, and the aftermath - the buzz from it that would last for hours. Not great if you are teaching on a Friday night, and want to go to sleep at a reasonable hour. The first few weeks were pretty good; I started to learn to deal with my infernal nervousness about speaking in front of people, especially people I don't know, and to learn how to teach (which was never really taught in our training program), which is a long long journey in itself. I am learning what lessons are good for me to teach to people who are completely new to feldenkrais or any other sort of mind/body awareness system. Then Thanksgiving came, and my class dwindled away from 5 people to 1 person (and 0 on one cold and rainy night! how demoralizing that felt). The only good that came of this, is that for the past couple classes, I seem to have one student who is really committed to the method and the class. I am trying to change the time/day, but I think the recreation center where I teach does not want to change it, because they have no other available time. 

I still get very nervous before teaching, which manifests in various procrastination activities, which "prevent" me from doing the lesson more times and more thoroughly, as well as feeling extra tired, because I practice too hard on Friday mornings at the shala...anxiety always increases my practice intensity. I need more exertion in order to feel calmer off the mat. Right now I should be making more notes from a recording of a similar lesson that I want to teach tomorrow night, but instead..voila..blogging! See how this works.

The other thing that has happened with respect to the feldenkrais, is that it went from being the thing that reduced my anxiety..to an amazing degree..to being something that causes me anxiety, because I am teaching. Unfortunately, as much as I want to give up even teaching my one class..I know I have to perservere, and see how it feels in 6 months, or a year. 

I have been really enjoying reading the mysore blogs lately, and this has led me to my own new set of mysore worries: can I even manage to go there? not in the can I get the time off, etc (which is a whole other ball of wax) but am I strong enough mentally and physically to plan and make the trip and even last a week at the shala. This keeps coming back to me when I am practicing lately. thoughts of -why the hell do I want to go there? what am I thinking? That mysore is the last place on earth that I would want to go to (ie. it is the great unknown). Then I finish practice, go to work (where I really don't want to be!), and then I go home, read a couple blog entries..and remember. Future worries, as if my day to day stuff was not enough.

I am now consistently standing up from my dropbacks, and lately I have even learned to keep my feet still -no stepping back at least, when I stand up. This came as quite a shock, since right before I managed it, I took a huge spill on my head trying come up from that last UD. I am still working on standing up from that last UD, which might as well be jumping from the earth to the moon. I could really use the moon's lesser gravity to help me out here! But alas, I am on the earth. It is getting closer, I can feel that..but still seems like a vast chasm to cross to move my pelvis far enough forward to be able to stand up. I watched my mat neighbor do it when I was conveniently in the praseritas today..and it helped somehow. Made my best effort to date which wiped me out for everything that came after. I even fell spectacularly trying to stand up during dropbacks, something that hasn't happened since the day I bonked my head. I am convinced that if you are not willing to fall (a lot), that it is much harder to learn to stand up, or to do anything else. Falling is willingness to not know what I am doing, what I should do..and other than a bruised tush (and ego), it isn't going to cause major damage in the mysore room. Wish I could learn to fall more in other aspects of my life.