I cannot find, or re-find, my balance to my liking again to save my life. Being someone who, until recently, had freakishly perfect balance and could casually sail from Eagle to Dancer and then into Tree without a care in the world, it was a little bit of a rude awakening to discover how to make unique emergency breakdancing recovery transitions between repeated attempts at only getting halfway into those.
(We will not speak of what almost happened that first weekend of teacher training. I will tell you that people held me up. I will also tell you that had they not, it would have been ugly in a spin-the-little-yogi kind of way - - who knows in which direction she might go, but when she does? Together! Together we all go the hell down! As a community!)
Sometimes it comes back. And I'm like, whoa! Lately, it's admittedly been better - - I no longer feel like maybe I should have gotten the couch cushions and made a fort around myself when that oh, so special time for the balance poses comes in the yoga practice. Sometimes, like this morning, I can hold Eagle like I've been doing that asana all my natural life and possibly through the course of several others. Airplane, even, becomes something I can come to with relatively little drama, did it this morning straight out of Eagle with not even a tippy tippy toe to the floor. Dancer? Yep. Tree? Mm-hmm. I get out of my head and let them come, and while I might wobble, eventually I find stability and do alright. I can find my place, or allow my place, depending on how you look at it.
So the nemesis I mentioned? Half Moon. Ardha Chandrasana, something I used to be able to just, you know, casually pull off in the kitchen waiting for my coffee to be ready. This is pissing me off. Sister Ardha Chandrasana and I had it *out* last night, and hard. I started thinking about it, and how frustrating it is that even with a block standing on its end to put my hand on, I cannot come back to terms to that damned pose. It ain't happening. We don't jive right now. In my leopard print jammie pants, a black hoodie, and Paul Frank socks with cute little skulls on the top, I hopped out of bed like I had good sense and decided to (ahem) explore what might be going on OTHER than being in my head with regards to being able to not bust my ass merely considering coming into the pose. Took Airplane, took my hand to the floor, and attempted to open into Half Moon.
Took myself up off the floor, and tried again. Perhaps, I thought, it had to do with needing more of an inner rotation in my leg and grounding down more through the inside of my standing foot. Core, too. Got to have that core action going on. Back into Airplane. Hand to the floor. Opened up into a spin on my standing heel which very nearly took me all the way around. Came back to standing, and tried again. Airplane, hand to floor, soften my standing knee a bit, engage (ha!), open.
And all of a sudden, I was there.
And then I said, "Holy shit!", and busted my ass.
But I was there!
So I've decided that maybe, just maybe, Ardha Chandrasana isn't such an evil beeyotch. Maybe my hips *are* a little tighter than when it came so easily, ditto for my lower back. The sensations I felt during that moment last night would seem to indicate that, yes, the hips need a little work. It could be that my days of freaky perfect balance are long gone, but I'm not ready to entertain that reality yet. I'm going to invite Sister Ardha Chandrasana back over for tomorrow morning's practice and see how we get along, only going as far as our edge, wherever that might be. Here's hoping it's not the floor.
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