I almost suffocated at yoga today. My boobs and my nose met up and my boobs sucked in my nose like they were quicksand grabbing on. I had visions of my obituary reading something to the effect of "she died during an awkward yoga session when her boobs smothered her." I pulled up for air just in time.
Yoga is supposed to increase your awareness. Oh, I'm aware all right.
I'm aware of every roll, every fold, and every inflexible muscle I have. I'm aware that I don't know how to breathe (how I've stayed alive all these years is beyond me) and I am in fact as klutzy as I have thought myself to be. I'm aware of the sweat as it drips down my forehead, travels in a torturous way down my neck and pools between my boobs, all while I'm holding some quivering pose and can't wipe it away.
I'm also aware of my mind. "I can't", "This is ridiculous", "It's too hard", "I'm too big to do this", "I'll never...", and the litany of phrases marches on while I'm trying crow pose...or really almost any pose. I'm aware of my heart beating, not in the physical way but in the emotional sense. It beats and sometimes my eyes tear up and I don't know why. I'm aware I am uncomfortable, not just physically but mentally. I attempt to keep to myself, to make my large body as small as possible. Sometimes that awareness is when my eyes tear up. I'm aware that I am fidgety, distracted, and it's hard to just be.
So I suppose yoga is working. I'm definitely more aware when I'm practicing it.
As I was growing up I was given the impression that yoga was for hippies and it was evil. I'm not joking. In the circles I lived in, yoga was considered "new age" which was evil. So like any good lemming I have spent a good part of my life thinking yoga was bad. Very very bad. And then I decided to not believe that any longer because all of a sudden it didn't seem true and it seemed a little far-fetched that yoga, a practice in which you move your body for health and wellness, was evil.
Around 2012-2013 I started talking about beginning the practice of yoga. I took one class in 2017 and continued to talk about it. July 2019 I finally started, for real, the practice of yoga. It only took me 6-7 years...better late than never I suppose.
I'm an awkward yogi. Okay, I'm not really a yogi but go with it. The point is I'm awkward. For the first few classes I would find my mat folded up underneath me and I couldn't figure out how it had moved. I've figured out that issue but I still find myself more often than not somehow laying on the mat wonky. An aerial view would show the mat and I making an X. I don't know how this happens. A few times I have found myself with my whole lower body not even on the mat. Do I really not understand how to center myself? Well, since I'm so aware now, thanks to yoga, the answer is no I don't. I don't know how to center myself, literally or figuratively. But I'm going to learn.
After I almost suffocated in my boobs today I did a few things I was really proud of. I was in chair pose, I then went into airplane pose with my upper body. The the instructor suggested we raise ourselves up on our toes and balance in the half-chair, half-airplane pose. I immediately thought, "There is no way on God's green earth that's happening" and then I did it. It had to be a fluke. But then I did it again on the next flow. I was inwardly elated. I also did a few other poses today that, at first, I was like "psh, not happening" and then just did them. So I guess something else I'm more aware of is that I can be, and am, wrong about myself. I'm not giving myself enough credit, I can do more than what I think I can.
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