the crow pose

first of all, i have so many things to say to you. but, i am going to go off on a tangent instead.

as you may have been able to tell, i started this blog in the midst of what be considered my black period. now to give you an idea of the exact shade of black, i am almost as against prescription mood enhancers as i am against genocide and popped collars and veal, but even i had a moment where i considered a prozac/zanex cocktail the only speck of light in a dark, dark sky. to be fair, it was a very fleeting moment. but still.

i was jack-in-the box of emotion. the tension would build and build and build behind my eyes, and then with little warning, i would burst out into tears. if i wasn't crying, i was holding my breath. avoiding deep breaths was the only way to get through the day.

my inner monologue was, lets just say, intense. i needed to give myself a voice.

i was introduced to the 'blogosphere' (i hate that term, sorry) at the exact same time. just when i was trying to figure out how to say the things that needed to be said: the good, the bad, and the hilarious.

that day, as it turns out, was a tuesday. tuesday is yoga day. (nearly) every tuesday, without fail, between the hours of eight and nine o'clock, my ass is in the yoga class at my gym ('the gay gym'). with dwayne. who pronounces 'mirror' like 'mirra', and that makes me a little crazy, but i got over it because his muscley, laser-hair-removaled self leads a mean series every week.

on this specific day i was anxious to start my blog. obviously, i had so many things to say, and i needed a place to put those things, immediately. but my blog needed a name. i couldn't even sign up for a url without a name. i tried to think of many clever things. but when you are in a dark place, clever is hard. while fortunately during all this time, i have never lost my impeccable sense of humor, the need for the blog was serious. and a more serious name seemed appropriate, at the time.

and then yoga began. this might be a good time to search deep for a blog name, i thought.

it was going well. warm up was good, i exhaled like i was 'fogging the mirra in the front of the room' just as dwayne instructed. the series was challenging, warrior I, II, and III, and my personal and all time favorite, downward facing dog, were involved. i considered 'downward facing dog' as the title of my blog, but thought people might get the wrong impression on the topic of the blog.

the session winded down as it always does, with some hamstring stretching and another good one, bow pose, that i like just because of the name, not because i have to balance on my tailbone with the rest of my limbs spread in the air.

then it was time for the one pose i was dreading all night. shavasana. or the corpose pose.

shavasana, has been deemed by some yogis, to be one of the most important, but also one of the most challenging poses, even though all you really appear to be doing is laying on the ground like a dead person and trying to not fall asleep.

well, if you're doing it right, that is partially true.

the true goal (as i understand it) is to reach complete and total relaxation and stillness of body, breath and mind.

body, fine, i can have a relaxed and still body. just let go of all the tension in every corner of my body. i am admittedly pretty good at that. although i do struggle with releasing the furrow between my brow, ever.

breath, not so hard either, seeing as you aren't moving, so there's nothing really to interfere with that. and by this time you have been practicing breathing slow and deep and making your ins equal to your outs for an hour, so it comes pretty naturally by now.

mind, however, is not quite so straightforward. on the happiest day of my life i don't think it would be easy to have a relaxed and still mind. and what that really means is to have no thought at all.

the way dwayne instructs us into this part of the pose is to free your mind of thought, and should any thought creep its way into your mind, simply watch it fly by without judgment or attachment, until it is gone.

we are supposed to do this for five minutes. for five complete minutes we are supposed to avoid thought at all, but also avoid falling asleep.

i, instead, was bombarded by thoughts. it was like i was laying on a dart board, and just letting self doubt, fear, hurt, and pain have a go at me. i would try and whisk that thought away, but it would just breed more. the backs of my eyes were filled with tear potential. i was not still in mind at all, in fact, i was the complete opposite.

when the five minutes were up, i was relieved to move into the fetal position, the next step back toward reality, where i was protected from the targets.

i was utterly defeated. i felt miserable. it was my worst shavasana ever.

it was then that i realized it. this should be the name of my blog.

shavasana or shava-asana, another yogi-approved spelling, and also the only available url, or the corpse pose

it was ideal. the goal of my blog was to give me that stillness of mind that i sought in corpse pose. to allow me to release the chatter in my head into something useful, and for the benefit and enjoyment of others, so that i no longer had to carry the burden, or the amusement, all on my own.

the blog would map my journey to the perfect shavasana.

and thats how the corpse pose was born.

the end.

....

now, with that, i think it might be fun to discuss, perhaps on a regularly scheduled tuesday blog post, my trials and tribulations with the practice of yoga. which, if you know anything about yoga, is an on-going, yet rewarding, personal battle to unite the body, mind and breath in order to unite ones self with the ultimate principle (i prefer 'ultimate principle' to Supreme Being, because when misspelled, it is the 'universal principal' and thats a cool way to think of who or what ever it is out there that people sometimes refer to as God).

now, it is all that. but for me, it really is, as my yogi, dwayne, says, a time that i give as a gift to myself to focus only on myself and my own personal and perfect yoga practice.

(sidebar on dwayne: he likes boys, and he has 0% body fat, only one of those things is the reason i will not fall in love with him)

and so i begin this regularly scheduled post with:

the crow pose (bakasana, also known as the crane pose)

today, the whole series, aptly named 'crane', was about balance. which i was looking forward to, because i am an above-par balancer. i don't even need to stare at a spot on the wall to hold myself on one foot in a variety of contorted positions.

but as soon as dwayne told us to crouch down and rest our knees on the backs of our arms, i was pretty much ready to call this session a defeat.

i had tried crow pose before. many times.

with such an ominous name, it doesn't lend itself to thoughts of positivity, or simplicity. and neither does the execution. one website even lists high blood pressure as a reason NOT to do crow pose, and suggests consulting a doctor before attempting if you have 'doubts or concerns regarding the stability of this pose for you'.

who is not going to have doubts about balancing all 100-odd pounds on the backs of your arms? talk about a time to immediately regret that t-bell mexican pizza you ate three months ago.

fear of cracking my skull open usually overrode my desire to balance my entire body on my hands, while holding my butt high in the air.

to be fair (to whom, i don't know), i actually never gave it a good college try. i would just rock forward onto my arms just enough to give the illusion to the instructor that i was trying, but failing. and this is exactly what i did the first go round.

but as in any of dwayne's series, you end up doing a pose about 6 times as you work your way through the series, pose by pose.

the second and third time around i got a big more daring. i lifted myself higher on my toes and rocked forward more, but with no real intention of lifting anything off the ground. certainly not one or more of my feet.

then the fourth time came around, and for some reason i thought maybe i should bring my hands further away from my feet, just so my legs might have something more to balance on. it just felt more right. and this time, rocking forward just naturally balanced my legs on my arms and lifted at least one foot completely off the ground.

woah, progress.

time five, i was holding my entire body with the back of my arms. perfect crow pose.

i couldn't believe it, i was flying. (i would use exclamation marks here, if they were in my punctuation vocabulary)

it lasted less than a second. certainly not for the three breaths we were instructed to hold it. but i did it. i actually did it. i was so pumped i got a little cocky and a little off balance through the rest of the poses on that round of the series.

by six, i was up on my arms for one full breath.

i was elated.

the amount of pride i had at that moment was something i rarely allow myself to feel, total selfish pride.

the feeling even seeped over into the shavasana. i didn't quite make it through completely thoughtless, but i was at least unattached to my thoughts, and mostly just giving myself silent congratulations on my big accomplishment. which i think is at the best case scenario, if the alternative was brooding.

at the end of the session i couldn't wait to tell someone, anyone, about my big accomplishment. the guy next to me was crowing before class even started, so he was not the right audience (show off). i needed to tell someone who would understand.

so i told dwayne. we had never really talked, even though i sit smack dab in the front of the room, and to the right of the instructor a bit, just enough to have an unobstructed view of myself in the mirror, to admire (i mean critique) my form, of course. i sit there because i like to pretend its just the instructor and me in the class, rather than judge everyone else on their form. (okay, i do a little bit of judging, but a lot less than i would if i were in the back) that, and i don't like other people's asses i my face, call me crazy.

so anyways, back to dwayne...

me: hey, that was a great series
d: yeah, you did great today, your form looked really good
me: that was my first successful crow
d: really? i was so impressed. i almost pointed you out in front of the entire class. that was exactly the way to do it.
me: blushing

i left the class flying. hell yeah he was going to point me out in front of the class, i'm the biz-omb. i was smiling in the same goofy way people smile after getting a test back with a big red 'A' on the top, or after a very successful romp in the bedroom, as i walked through the gym and to my car.

today was a good day.

good news is, we get to repeat the series next tuesday.

dear crow,
see you next tuesday, suckaaaa!
love always,
hoppster