In questi mesi estivi di allenamento trail e yoga finalizzato all'”impresa” per me più ardua, la 100km della CCC sul Monte Bianco,  (www.ultratrailmb.com), ho trovato appropriatissimo nelle parole e nello spirito, questo blog su www.runnersworld.com di una runner da poco anche yogini, KRISTIN ARMSTRONG. Mi sovviene una frase di B.K.S.Iyengar, che suona un pò (tanto) da Piccolo Principe (“L’essenziale è invisibile agli occhi”), quale è…. e siamo. Let’s not forget!

Non tutto può essere osservato con i nostri due occhi.Ogni poro della pelle deve funzionare come un occhio. La tua pelle è la guida più sensibile.

July 28, 2009

Blind Spots

I missed my yoga fix last week and my body was creaky and grumpy about it, so I went to a class on Monday taught by a new friend named Kelly.  I have been to her class before, and I love the way she speaks, how the workout is for my “core” in a physical sense as well as a spiritual/mental/emotional sense.  Kelly emphasizes total presence, which is nearly impossible for a woman with thoughts that ping and crackle in my head like Jiffy Pop on a campfire.

This class started out normal, but quickly took a turn for the unexpected.  After a brief meditation, she handed out scarves to each student and announced that the class would be conducted with blindfolds on, so tie the scarf on tightly.

Gulp.  The thoughts started popping:

I can barely do yoga when I can see!  I can’t balance when I don’t pick a ‘spot’ on the wall to stare at!  I don’t know the names of many the poses so I can’t do them without cheating by looking on other people’s mats!  I can’t do it right if I can’t compare myself to someone else!

She enters the hallway of my mind and says on the loudspeaker, “You are probably thinking that you can’t do yoga without your eyes, but you can.  It might not be perfect, but it’s not about that.  Whatever you are doing is going to be just right. We waste so much time comparing ourselves to everyone else, and today is going to be a departure.  Relax and breathe.”  It took me a moment to realize she said that out loud, to all of us.

At first my breath eluded me and I could feel the sweat pooling around my blindfold.  I tried to cheat and look beneath it, but sweat dumped in my eyes when I opened them so I took that as a sign to stop doing that.  I felt awkward and wondered if I was doing something completely different from the rest of the class, if they had moved on without me, or if I was the only one facing the wrong way.  My knees wobbled and slipped off my triceps in a feeble attempt at a crow pose, and I knew that I had to stop thinking and start being present or I was going to fall on my face for real.  I started breathing, this time with intention.

I had a brief flashback to my children as babies, to the innocent way they thought they were hiding when they covered their own eyes. Inhale. Exhale. The room fell away.  Kelly’s voice was nearby and I could hear the regulated breathing of the students around me.  Sometimes I could feel her hands on me, steadying me or repositioning me – but oddly not correcting me.  Next thing I knew our time was up and I was sweaty and content in a shut-eyed savasana, aka corpse pose (no teacher really calls it that, thank God).  After bidding ‘namaste’ I handed in my soggy blindfold, retrieved my flip flops, and walked out of the studio into the glare of the afternoon sun.  Everything looked too bright.  I drove home slowly, thinking.

I was thinking how smart and creative it was to make us do that, how totally, uncomfortably important that was for me.  In yoga and out, I spend too much time and energy trying to do things right, working to figure things out, trying not to look like an idiot, judging my efforts and my results, and comparing myself to other people, usually unfairly.  What if I really could surrender and trust?  What if I could accept that whatever I’m doing and however I’m doing it is just right for now?

Maybe once in a while we need to close our eyes in order to see.