The hard and the soft...

Now, those of you who know me well will likely think the title of this entry is sexual. I do like my potty humour and have a terribly naughty mind, but alas, I'm sorry to disappoint that it has nothing to do with this.

I've been really thinking, most of the summer actually, about the hardness of this practice. The intensity really, which seems like hardness. It comes across to those who don't practice it that it's all about pushing further and further and forcing yourself into these postures that don't seem natural.

In fact, its the exact opposite.

If you try to push yourself into these posture you will do nothing but hurt yourself. I used to do that when I was first practicing Ashtanga yoga, hurt myself a lot while teaching myself third series (I'd previously learned primary and Intermediate with a teacher).

The key to this practice, which already brings a strong yang vibe in its intensity with all the focus on the breath, bandhas and dristhi and the sheer amount of jump backs, jump throughs and posture sequences, is to allow it to happen. Is to soften and just breath without a lot of muscle tension or mental tension to make it worse. It's to find the softness, the feminine energy, the yin, within all that yang.

It took me coming to Mysore and having Sharath poke me with his toe saying relax, relax, relax, thirty times each practice to realise the maybe he wanted me to relax and not push so hard, not focus so much on my alignment, which I'd gotten into with the study of Anusara yoga, and just breathe. Breath really is the softest thing we can offer ourselves, and it changes our postures.

It slowly seeped into my practice that I'm meant to just practice, not thing about everything while I'm practicing. They've given us enough to focus on during our sadhana, so just breathe and do it and look at your nose and do it and just do it, do the next posture! hahaha...

So, I feel like this trip is really going well because I've integrated that softness by now, my fourth trip here, and my back feels great, my wrist was hurting but keeps getting better and my mind I'm mostly able to shut off during the asanas.

I ran across someone I've seen around at the shala on Facebook and found out he does Thai massage, which I also do, but that I never have the opportunity to receive. So decided to contact him about getting some bodywork, even though I didn't really need it, I've been craving that human touch and was following my instincts and they'd told me to contact him.

I must say it was the most bizarre massage I've ever had, very strange techniques that I've never encountered, but my god, it was also the best bodywork I've ever had. I feel better than I've felt in a long, long time and he mostly focused on the wrist, but using the whole body to get the energy flowing to the wrist, and everywhere. But the one thing that stood out is what he said to me after the experience. He told me he felt that I've worked hard on myself and I've achieved a lot but there is some last bit of resistance and that is whats affecting the wrist. I also felt this so agreed and now need to figure that out and let it move on through.

But he also said that he so much appreciated my softness. He could tell I worked hard to get to that point and it was a pleasure to work on someone who received so well. How masculine it is to be with and admit your softer side, rather than harden up (as we're taught to do so intently back in the midwest, maybe everywhere actually) and he appreciated it.

So, I'm soft. I've always wanted to be and I guess I have achieved that. But my hardness comes out a lot as well, as it has in pissing a few people off this week via social media. So it's always a balancing act, isn't it? Finding out when to comment, or not, and if you do to deal with the consequences of it, good or bad. But then good or bad are just labels, and I'm so tired to death of labelling everything.

Put that way, aren't hard and soft just labels as well? They are also ways of being I guess but labels to those ways of being still. Maybe one day I'll learn to just be, to just be content and at peace with whatever comes, as the sutras state. Maybe not. For now I'll be who I am and sometimes I'll remember to back off, and sometimes I won't and Ill make that comment, and sometimes when receiving bodywork I might tense up, but sometimes I'll be able to relax and fully receive it and just breathe.

Those who know me and love me get me either way, they may get irritated when I'm a bit too hard edged, but they know that underneath it I'm just a big soft teddy bear. Now I've spilled the beans and you all know it huh? Oh well, maybe that's part of it too. The catharsis of letting you all know my secrets, or maybe not having secrets at all? Ahhh, I like that...