I had the whole wild monkey mind number going on in my asana practice this morning – chitter chatter, chit chat – a host of unsettling thoughts and doubts. Amongst other things, I could hear my joiner cutting tiles for my new bathroom and knew he wanted a decision from me about some detail. Worries about a misunderstanding with a friend seemed determined to occupy my thoughts. My witness-self said to my ego-self “all these doubts are just a trick – delusion.”
I began my practice with kapalabahti. Eventually this powerful pranayama, followed by the repetition of slow, breath infused vinyasa and asana, began to have its effect. By the time I got to Savasana I could feel a smile inside me just from the reassuring contact of my back with the ground. Now I’m remembering Sandra Sabatini’s words about kapalabahti in ‘Breath, the essence of Yoga’:
‘kapalabahti takes away uncertainty – doubts
especially first thing in the morning
with the whole day in front of you
and wondering how to cope
kapalabhaati can ‘write the schedule’ for you
in a neat, clear way’.
She’s right – doubts and uncertainty can be diminished by beginning the day in this way. And, as I said last week, the homologous action of vinyasa (where there’s a push from both hands to both feet, and back again) can also help us be more effective in our actions, more able to ‘stand our ground’ and ‘take our lives in our hands’. But the homologous push needs to come from a beautiful yield in order to be effective. The qualities of the homolateral pattern are needed too, so there is the possibility for negotiation.
A few years ago I was giving one-on one sessions to a teacher who worked in a ‘high achieving’ school. The headmaster had an aggressive and bullying manner – particularly towards my client. The head often said to him ” You’ve got to push the pupils more.”
Together my client and I explored what happened when there was just ‘push’. We stood facing each other with hands to hands – my right hand to his left, my left hand to his right. We pushed and pushed against each other’s hands. It wasn’t pleasant and it didn’t get us anywhere. Then we began to play with yield and push through the hands so we had a rebound between us – this was much more pleasant. We found we breathed more easily too. Then we took the experiment a stage further – by alternating the hand that was releasing and pushing from one to another – a more homolateral movement. Our game began to turn into a dance.
The movement exercise clarified why the atmosphere was so unpleasant in the school – how there needed to be more ‘give with the take’, more negotiation, more pause for thought before action. But my client was not going to be able to change things in the school, so he left this town and took a new job on the other side of the world.
What about my morning? The bathroom detail decision was made, I trusted that the misunderstanding with my friend would resolve in time and I pruned my Annabelle Hydrangeas. I guess only similarly obsessed garden geeks can begin to understand how passionate I am about this job. I absolutely love pruning shrubs into a beautiful shape, especially a flowering one with the potential for so much loveliness later. This picture shows what I’m looking forward to.
