Enjoying the journey

I've always found it kind of annoying when people tell me to 'enjoy the journey' - it's like when people tell you to 'relax' or 'don't be shy'. It's easier said than done aye.

After the most perfect few days with my little monkey, Conan, I'm starting to feel my patience fray (or rather shred) like an old towel.

"Conan, down boy, get off the towel!"

I mean you read all these books, you speak to people in pet shops, vets, pet trainers and they tell you: if he's bad you ignore him or correct him with a simple 'ah ah' and then finally you confine him. If he's good you shower him with praise.

Yeah right.

This would be a typical 1 minute in the life of.

I'm sitting at the computer in the kitchen. Conan comes staight over and sits on my feet, all big puppy dog eyes. "Good boy" i say... then, excitement mounting he attempts to jump up "uh uh" i say, and down he gets: "Good boy." I walk to the fridge, he's tags my ankles as I walk then he's is in the fridge with me. "uh uh". no response. "Uh uh" I say again. Still no response "Uh..." and he walks away. "Good boy" I say then he starts to crouch slightly as if about to pee "Uh!" I say louder and usher him outside leading him to his toilet pad. Nothing doing. Then he's chewing the plant outside. "Uh uh" nothing. I throw a ball around. He chases it. "Good boy."  I ask him to come. He runs the ball inside, chasing past my legs and into the lounge, just as I get there he's chewing the rug. "UH UH" nothing. I decide to ignore him and go back to the kitchen. He follows after me. I say 'sit' he sits. Good boy I stroke him and get him excited, he's licking my face. I'm back at the computer, he runs towards the lounge again. I try to stop him by shutting the door. His head is almost jammed (though of course it's not) "uh uh" - no response.

Okay, that's probably the minute up.

Thank goodness for these pizzles (pig's penises) he writhes in an aphrodisiac fuelled ecstasy. Rolling on his side, his back, covering himself with the scent of the pizzle - who knows what these things contain,  but they sure do work... Long enough for me to write this post.

It's so much fun. But it's also so tiring. I feel he's learning more and more, as I am, by the day; but the more he absorbs of this new life, the more he learns how to work me out. I need infinite patience; i need to learn to marvel at the minutiae. We made some progress today. 2 x pees outside. This is good. I need to remember to enjoy the journey as he is.

A rare moment of calm

Floating effortlessly... hmmmm

Yes, the old effortless effort quality. It’s something which us yogis know all too well as we attempt to ‘float’ through to a seated position from down dog or lift our entire body weight off the floor in a cross legged position (known as lolasana)and 'drift' back. Floating, drifting! 'Effortless' is not the word, there’s a heap of steely determination, five long years of regular practice and a tonne of internal bandha* control and physical strength required. So when the teacher (and I’ve done it many times myself) says jump or float lightly through to a seated position you know at least 70% of the class are gritting their teeth and working strongly to get a glimpse of the requisite ‘mysterious’ internal strength. It’s easy to say it, it’s not so easy to do it.

Matthew Sweeney, in his book Astanga Yoga As It Is says when learning how to jump back and through, “try to optimise both the feeling of lightness (no strain) and strength. One without the other is an imbalance.” So teeth gritting isn’t going to work is it? And that’s exactly what I feel I’ve been doing lately. I’ve lost a little bit of the lightness and let the strength (good) and strain (bad) take over, leaving me unbalanced (exactly what a yogi doesn’t want to be). 

For the first couple of months of this New Life there was a certain amount of floating going on, I was somehow letting go of any external or ‘obvious’ effort but; like an eager-to-please duckling paddling madly to keep up with mum, my webbed feet were working double time. At least then I was managing to maintain some floaty serenity; now I’m splashing.

So, where’s all this going you ask?

Well as a new yoga teacher I feel this responsibility to be light, serene and to present effortless effort in all that I do. You know a good teacher when it all just comes together naturally; you’re taken along in the current of their class and you don’t even notice it. Who knows if anyone is taken along in my current, but today I made my first obvious yoga boo boo. It did not come together naturally at all. I was teaching a corporate class in the city at a market research agency where my sister works, and I had my alarm set for 6am to get the ferry at 7am and be there for 8am when my husband woke me up at 7.05 saying, ‘Claire, don’t you need to be up?’

Oh sh*t

So I leapt out if bed, called my sister straight away and apologised. What else can you do? But I feel like I let people down. Due to traffic and ferry times etc it wasn’t going to be possible to make it there for 8 or even 8.15 and they have to start work at 9. So I just had to say sorry again and that I’ll be there next week for sure.

So much for the effortless effort.

But of course, as my hubby said, these things happen. It’s the first time I’ve let anyone down (knowingly!) with a yoga class and at least now it will make me be sure to double, triple check that my alarm clock is properly set.

I am sure most people would agree but there's nothing worse than letting other people down (except maybe letting yourself down) and I did both. I’m tired at the moment, these are not excuses, but I guess I didn’t wake up naturally at 6 ish as I usually do 'effortlessly'; so I need to pull on some of that steely strength, the years of regular practice, and a bit more lightness, to take things a little less seriously. Occasionally we can’t jump through lightly, we mess up, I can’t let it weigh heavily on me.

*Bandhas are internal locks or seals are contracted or activated during yoga practice and which contain and control prana (energy) and heat within the body. The most common bandhas are: mula bandha  at the pelvic floor; uddiyana bandha located at the navel, lower abdomen region; and jalandhara bandha which is a tucking of the chin to bring about soft audible ujjayi breath.

Long weekending, Oz style

Happy birthday Queeny, for yesterday!


I love the fact that us Australians (I became a permanent resident last week so feeling very Australian lately) celebrate the birthday of our lady, the Queen of England. Back in Blighty we don't even know when her birthday is, let alone give the entire country a day off, so if ever there's a reason to be a royalist, here it is!


So, hubby and I decided to cut loose from the big smoke that is Manly and head on up north to another idyllic Aussie beach - Seal Rocks.  Ahh tis the life Australia. Being a long weekend and all (not that that means much to me these days - hooray!) it was the perfect chance err... do nothing. That's right. You have to travel for 4 hours in a car to do nothing these days. 


And that's just what we did. 


Well if you consider two closely fought games of Scrabble (1 draw, one win to me!) a stroll up to the lighthouse, feeding the retreat's horses Mono and Gauntlet, befriending the kookaburras and eating too much cheese and home cooked curry - thank the lordy for Madhur Jaffrey, you can't go wrong. 


The weekend was perfect. As we crunched along the gravel roads to our hideaway,   the evening sun casting golden spears through the trees, I felt one of those rushy, tingly there's-nowhere-I'd-rather-be moments. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remember how lucky I am to live in this beautiful, glorious, country.

Gauntlet and Mono, love apples (view from our balcony)

 Friendly kookaburra on the verandah

Seal rocks beach

Rainbow over Seal Rocks, view from the lighthouse

Battler

I’ve never cried in a yoga class before but I did during a meditation practice once during my teacher training - we did a full day of meditationy techniques. It was like an emotional mogul run; bumping along. At times I felt all snuggly and comforted, at other moments I was aghast, sad, lonely and empty.  I’ve still not really worked out what was going on that day – but maybe one day I will.

There was a girl in my yoga class yesterday who cried. I was practicing thankfully, as I’m not sure I’d know what to do if a student were affected like whilst I am teaching – although of course it’s entirely natural; life doesn’t wait ‘til we’re ready does it, so you manage (sometimes the responsibility involved in being a yoga teacher blows me away...!)

But anyway, I spoke to my teacher (as he’s also a kind of mentor to me at the moment), after the class about how to deal with this and why it could happen; and his suggestion was that, yes yoga releases emotions – in particular twists and heart-opening backbends are known to make you a bit weepy – but he also believed that it was down to that student’s own expectations as well. When you’re in a challenging class and struggling with certain postures, it can be really confronting. “Why can’t I do this pose?” “When will I be able to do it?”

I sometimes imagine there’s this little battler inside me, he’s like one of those sports-mad Dads who desperately wants their kid to play footy for Australia, frantically egging his son on (I’d just like to add that his son is a toddler), slating him if he misses a ball, calling ‘out!’ when the ball was just out – you know the type, it’s not realistic, but it's how we can be with ourselves sometimes. Now I don’t know if this was the case for this girl of course, but for me it shows how we can manifest our emotions, our struggles, our strengths and our weaknesses within our in our practice. But really, this is where yoga has worked for me – when you take that sticky mat metaphor and apply it to your life.

In terms of how I’d cope with this in a class of my own, his advice was simple. Just be there for them but don’t pry too much. It’s pretty heavy this yoga lark.