I took 4 days off from my yoga to deal with a colonoscopy and recovery from its associated complications. The last day before I took off, I did the first day of week 5: Twisting of "Moving Toward Balance: 8 Weeks of Yoga with Rodney Yee". I remembered while I was doing this lesson that the last time that I did this weeks lessons, I really hated it. The pretzel-like twists in his variation 3 of most of the new poses are completely out of the scope of my abilities, and if I try to do them, I find that I struggle with just getting my arms to go the right way. And if I can finally manage to grab my toe (arm, waist, etc), my body is so contorted out of proper position, I find it frustrating and I begin resenting the lesson and secretly accusing Rodney of being unnecessarily difficult and tedious.
So... after taking four days off, I had a hard time motivating myself to come back to week 5 of the book. I played with whether I should begin at week 1 again, or take a break from Rodney Yee and do my Richard Hittleman "Yoga: 28 Day Exercise Plan" routines.
A part of me didn't really think that quitting at a time that I hate the lessons was a good time, so I negotiated with myself. I told myself to just do the ones that I can do, and not even attempt to do the version 3 twists. And maybe not even try to twist far, but instead of making it a tedious lesson, try to make it more meditative and gentle.
That's what I did last night. I re-did lesson 1 of week 5 on Twisting, but I did the twists in a very gentle, contemplative way, concentrating on listening to my body and the things that Rodney says we should be thinking about: Inhaling into the bottom of the twist, exhaling as I'm twisting and feeling my body rising, and then inhaling as I untwist slightly.
It turned out to be perfect for me to approach the lesson that way. I felt very positive afterwards, and felt good that I could come up with a way to modify the lesson so that I could feel good about it. I'm sure if I went back over the instructions in the book I'd find that somewhere along the line Rodney says to do that. It's hard to find a balance between doing what I can do and challenging myself to go just one step further.
It felt wonderful to do the meditations after last nights lesson. My "chi" was full of positive, relaxing energy, and I found myself at peace, even during the sitting-against-the-wall part of the meditation which I find to be hard. Maybe the pillow in the small of the back helped. This is the first sitting-against-the-wall instruction where Rodney has you using a pillow at the small of your back. Or maybe it was just that my practice was so wonderful.
