Jelly-asana

I went to class last night feeling like a jelly. Muscles felt non-existent. I was weak, devoid of energy. How would it be to practice like that? I’m slowly, slowly learning to ask the question genuinely without fearing the answer. If I am well enough to get there, I go to class and let the rest take care of itself.

My teacher joked about giving me a blanket to sleep under! And I think he actually would have done if I needed it. But my body probably surprised us both. Asana practice just hummed along pretty nicely. It helped that it was quite a beginner class [ha, look at me all of a sudden finding I don’t classify myself as beginner so much now!]. So the transitions were more straightforward and the overall pace quite manageable. There were very intense physical feelings the whole way through as though everything was working for the first time. So I breathed and observed. And felt grateful for all this — the absence of ‘bad’ physical feelings (known as aches and pains out in the real/judgmental world!) was a relief , the presence of ‘interesting’ ones was even better.

I tried to go for observation with adjustment where I could feel it was needed, almost as an instinct. Just don’t let the brain get involved. Muscles speak the truth, the brain always lies. And the most interesting part was that this practice wasn’t a strain and I wasn’t compelling my body to comply with what I wanted to do. Where did the feelings of weakness and fatigue go? I don’t know. All I did was breathe and stretch…

image source: http://mrmen.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Jelly.