Recently, one of my favorite yoga teachers told the class "what are you resisting right now? find out and let it go. it is like driving. you see the red light. you want it to be green, but it is not. it is red. you are all tense. if you accept it is red and relax till it becomes green you are much better off. I used to tense up at red signals.. now I acccept. whatever it is you are resisting, be it the fact that your water bottle is almost empty, something at work, some local tension in your body.. let it go!"
At first I was worried for the teacher because this dude is very happy go lucky and for a few seconds I saw a side of him that I have not seen before... a very philosophical deeply introspective person. There was a seriousness in his eyes when he said it that was a "I have been here, done that and I am not saying this to be taken lightly"
The very next day, another favorite teacher of mine comes back to the hot room. Have missed him the last three months because every day when I start doing the standing bow, I will start wrong and correct myself and would think of this guy. The last two three weeks, there is no correcting, but that tells you that any changes to the practice over the last many years has a 2 month plus time to take permanence. It is not easy to break habits.
So "El Fuego" shows up and is watching me.. he even remembers what he told me before leaving and at that moment I get "teacheritis". It is a condition where the fact that the teacher is watching you makes you conscious, and you try to do the best you can be, over do it, and fall off in a small heap on your mat.
After a few attempts I pulled off what was the best standing bow to date and he comes and pulls my leg and hand "up" and says "you have fixed the hand to chin and the kick, but now you are too down and you push your hip out in the last moment.. start working on that"
It is going to be another two months to get that one down!
As for resistance, that part is absolutely true. You can go from San Jose to San Francisco in the same car and spend different amounts of gas depending on how you drive. If you drive without constant braking, you get better gas mileage and don't wear off your brake pads. If you speed up and slow down with minimal use of the brakes, it is a much more comfortable ride.
My recent experiences in the yoga room are all about the brakes. I can do the poses. Have significantly improved over the last year. Can also do the class without sighing or any heavy breathing. So the breathing is getting better. The real issue is to focus and be in the room instead of having the mind wander.
Takes me 20 minutes sometimes to forget work, home, the guy who tailgated me for no reason etc. before the class. Then when we get down on the floor and are lying on the mat looking at the glass or ceiling, it is the little corrosion behind the mirror, the one tile that is slightly off on the ceiling, or an ant that is about to die when my 747 lands on it (we fly like planes in the yoga room at one point).
Have been working consciously to reduce this 20 minutes down. So far it is ~5 minutes.
If that 5 minutes can come down to a few seconds, that would be awesome!
