lazy person’s ashtanga

After the David Garrigues workshop in April, I was so inspired and fired up.  I had seen how to work hard, had sweated through my clothes five days in a row, had gone further in a dozen poses than ever before, and was positively vibrating with excitement with my progress.  For several weeks I was doing full primary’s with all the vinyasa, no slacking, no easy versions when I could do more, sweaty clothes, the works.

And then I started skipping.

I just felt so tired.  Plus I was finishing a novel and the seasons changed with the kids not doing all their activities and classes and blah blah blah, I don’t know.  I just didn’t want to practice.  What the heck?  I love my practice!  What was going on?

I think, maybe, the workshop broke me a little.  I don’t mean injury, although I did hurt my hip a few weeks ago (its fine now).  I just think all that gung ho energy might not be sustainable for me, by myself, in my little home practice.  I took a week off, then did a four practice week, then another week off, then a three practice week, then another week off…it was scary, the incredible shrinking practice.  Would I lose it altogether?

The only way I could get myself back on the mat this week was to say to myself, hey, take it easy.  Just do a few surys.  Do it at 50% capacity.  Just go through the motions.

But this worked.  It helped. I did that practice yesterday, and it felt wonderful.  Sort of like I’d gotten my old practice back!  Which surprised me, as I hadn’t thought of my “old” practice as being something I had lost.  But an easy, pleasurable practice was familiar—no striving, no heroic efforts, just my little practice, primary to navasana, a few gentle backbends over a ball, finishing.  Maybe 60 minutes, tops.  A little bit of sweat, a nice warm limber feeling after, but not wiped out, not wrung out, not I’m done for the day…

Today, it wasn’t too hard to get the mat out and do it again.  Maybe I’m back…?

I’m not saying that a Go For Broke practice is wrong, or bad, or even that I don’t want to do that sometimes.  I’m just thinking that Easy Does It might be a better long term strategy for me.  (This is the Post of Many Slogans, apparently.)  Despite the fact that my progress is slow, I think I’d rather show up every day and do a little, easy primary, than knock it out and find myself skipping because I just can’t face the work of it.  Lazy people can’t do ashtanga, that’s the famous quote, right?  But maybe this is the way a lazy person does ashtanga?  Or maybe this is a 40+ year old woman doing ashtanga?  Practicing for pleasure in the moment instead of trying to get somewhere?  I don’t know.  I just don’t want to lose my practice and making myself do it, forcing myself through will power to do it, isn’t working.

I’ll know in a few days if my back-to-easy program sticks.