this year was lousy, but at least it was familiar

Continuing with the Calvin and Hobbes theme (you can never have too much Calvin and Hobbes IMHO) today. I can totally commiserate with calvin on his hatred of change. I am terrible with change, and prefer the familiar, even if it is not good. I used to get almost sick with worry before the first day of school, in elementary school. I am a little better now, but not much. Teaching my one class wipes me out emotionally. Often I spend far too much time and energy worrying over things that might change, but that don't need my attention in that way. Or I take so much time to decide to do something, that I sometimes lose the opportunity to do the very thing I had decided upon. Other areas of my life, which could use some (well maybe a lot of) attention, get ignored.

image taken from here

I am definitely going to write some resolutions for 2014.

I don't feel like the year was lousy for me..but it has been exhausting, with working more hours (close to full time for months, though not paid for full time), no vacation time til this week (and not getting the full 2 weeks I should get), continuing with the feldenkrais training program, starting to teach feldenkrais classes (and discovering I have a love hate relationship with teaching), anxiety over looking for a new apartment (but then not moving), other anxiety issues, and continuing my practice no matter what. Working more has meant less time for keeping up with friends here (and re-thinking what I want in a friend), although the training program has introduced me to a lot of new interesting people over the past couple years.

I am looking forward to some quiet time on new year's eve and new year's day. Really happy new years day is a moon day, even though I have no official plans for new years' eve.

chocolate helps backbending

Well, I doubt that it helps, but backbending certainly seems to create a craving for chocolate...





I managed to stand up from that last UD at the shala today. Bit of jogging back and to one side, but up is up..and it sure made the 3 dropbacks afterwards easier. Celebrated at home with some chocolate, of course!

Off to a museum tonight..though I still have to decide which one. 10 days of freedom from work..first real break in a year. Much much needed!

plastic jesus

When I was a kid, I would spend holidays at my aunt and uncle's house. After dinner, my uncle, who loves to entertain anyone, especially kids, would get out his guitar and play songs for us to sing along to. I really loved those sing-a-longs, and feeling like part of a bigger family, especially when my parents weren't getting along so well. I remember a smattering of Beatles songs, various folk songs (embarassing me always with oh susannah!) and then songs like this one...which I loved, and thought my uncle was just sooooo cool for playing.


Since I live in a mostly Dominican neighborhood, you can even buy your very own little plastic jesus' at the 99 cent store around the corner from me.

The neighborhood is also rather gentrified..there is now a starbucks, almost down the street from me. Makes for a total of 3 coffeeshops yet nowhere truly pleasant to go for coffee and sit and read, which is perhaps the one thing I truly miss about living in the northwest.

Practice update: Practiced at the shala today. No miraculous repeat of the xmas eve miracle of standing up from that last UD. Fell once, but on my butt, not my head. Had one very good dropback and standup, much more controlled than usual., so I guess yesterday's mini breakthrough has had some positive effects on my dropbacks. I suspect it may still be quite a while til I can stand up from that last UD at the shala though. And, in typical holiday and pre-LH fashion, my neck and also my back are annoyingly tweaked and sore. Was it the standing up attempts yesterday? How I slept? Something else? Good thing I get tomorrow off for LH. Hope this all settles down by next week, since I have next week off work. Friday practice will be interesting. Neck tweaks seem to be my new thing..replacing the toe smashing of the previous year.

Spending a quiet night at home, eating chocolate (LH demands it!) and reading Where'd you go Bernadette, which is both funny and sad in turns. Highly recommended!

the snoopy dance!

This pretty much sums up what I felt this morning, at home, after standing up from that last backbend from the floor.

di


will I replicate it tomorrow at the shala. who knows. I hope I manage it again sooner than the 3 months from first accidental standup to real standing up from dropbacks. All I know is that I told myself I could do it..and I did it. Twice, since the first time I might have used my hand brushing my futon sofa as a bit of a help on the way up. Second time I managed it clear in the middle of the room.

Wish other things were that simple.

happy holidays!

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.

fall colors, janet cardiff and the 40 part motet

I finally made it out to the Cloisters today, which is a short walk from my apartment. Ft. Tryon Park had amazing fall foliage. Wish I had brought more than my phone with me. My neighborhood sits between 3 large forested parks. Up here, you can get views that really make you think you are not in New York City.

It has been a long time since I hiked up to the Cloisters, for a variety of reasons.

What got me to make the hike?..only one of my all time favorite art pieces..Janet Cardiff's 40 Part Motet. When I first encountered this piece at Moma quite a while ago, I was moved to tears, and must have spent close to an hour listening to the piece over and over again. I thought the choral piece had been taken apart and rearranged..but it was just the effect of each of the 40 singers being recorded on a separate track and played on a separate speaker, with all the speakers arranged in an oval. The sound would wash across the room in different ways, creating a very visceral feeling of the piece. You could feel the sound vibrate in the room. The installation at the Cloisters is beautiful, but the sound just isn't the same. I am not sure if the piece is a victim of its own popularity, as the much larger number of people in the room muffled the sound a bit, or the higher ceiling in the somewhat larger space cause the sound to get a little lost at times. It didn't, how shall I say..bounce and ricochet across the space (who knows, maybe what I loved at Moma was an acoustical mistake). Still, I will try to return for a second hearing on a day when it is not so crowded.

               View of the Hudson River- across the way is the palisades in NJ, still relatively pristine. (hidden from view is the west side highway..which you can HEAR)

                              Looking out towards my neighborhood and north to the bronx, from the cloisters

on the way home...the hill is inwood hill park, claimed to be the only remaining natural forest in manhattan..

                                                                   tallis' 40 part motet

zzzzz zzzz zzzzzz!!!!!!

One of my favorite kid's books, from when I was a child, is verna aardema's why mosquitos buzz in people's ears. I loved the cool artwork and the crazy cause and effect story. Mosquito tells a lie to lizard..and the consequences of this cascade throughout the forest, until the sun itself is left to sleep and the forest left in darkness. This story also feels very appropriate for this time of year..when I normally get up and leave my apartment for the shala, before sunrise. What reminded me of this book, is that lately, I seem to have a very mosquito friendly apartment for reasons unknown to me. I live on the top floor, with no giant standing pools of water in my apartment..and it is cold outside at night (where do the mosquitos go in the winter, anyway?). For the second or third night this month, I have woken up to zzzz zzzz zzzzz! or just to itchy hands or arms from a mosquito mistaking me for dinner. Luckily for me, and not so much for the mosquito..the mosquito each time seems to just sit on the wall a few feet from my bed. Leave the crime scene is not in the mosquito's tiny brain. You know what happens next..ashimsa vs mosquito..well, the mosquito doesn't do so well.

mosquito telling a lie to lizard, from why mosquitos buzz in people's ears

Practice at the shala today was good despite not so much sleep last night and lousy subway connections this morning. I forgot that daylight savings time here is NEXT week, and stayed up later than I would have otherwise, thinking I had that extra hour. I guess I am happy I figured it out last night. Still no radiator heat at the shala, but the place was very full and the space heaters were chugging away. Since it was still rather cool in the room, I was stronger than usual, but not so bendy or twisty. I nearly fell backwards out of Mari D on the first side!  I tried to lift up out of  supta konasana for the proper exit. Tried. I think I got my butt off the floor (ok maybe just one side?) but the feet very definitely on the floor. How does this happen? Do I need to be able to do a proper lolasana before attempting it? Cold weather and the first practice or two of the week is always good for vinyasas and transitions because I need to maintain some heat in my practice and they are really calming to do. More so than the asanas at times, because I need total focus to do them.

The dropback angst is on the wane...Today was the second time that I did not have a great mental resistance to the idea of doing dropbacks. It just happens. I think some of this is because I am now working on coming up from the floor after the last UD (for normal folks that would be the 3rd one..for me it is number 5 or 6, while I try to get my legs to wake up so that my back can open up, so I can walk my hands in..and so on). I discovered that my method of standing up from dropbacks is by relying a bit too much on pushing with my hands/arms...or not pushing enough with my legs (hence the stumbling back). When I tried to "push" my pelvis forward..and push through the legs when I am in that last UD..nada, though the cold air in the shala was not helping at all. I will try to remember to imagine pushing tomorrow when I am doing my UDs..maybe that would help. Seems like I am a long way from coming up unassisted in that last one..but the assists for it seem to be solidifying my ability to drop back and then stand up on my own - today I was 4 for 4. All stumbly. The best I could manage today was to keep my left foot glued down and the right foot takes a big step back, and that was only for 2 of them. 

After that excitment, it was time to bundle up for savasana. shirt, wool sweater, knitted wool shawl and yoga blanket..and a hat! My hands and feet were freezing in the finishing room, since my hair was still damp and my clothes too (cold air doesn't prevent me from sweating), and the lack of sleep I have had since the whole standing up from dropbacks thing started isn't helping my circulation.

I did celebrate the no dropack angst afterwards with a good chocolate croissant, and a good book - the brain that changes itself..might deserve a post of it's own.