Yoga Brain

Just after my last post, I was bitten by a bug.  It looks like this:

I went to some yoga classes (tired of my frantic, purely physical workout routine).  After about two classes, I started looking for teacher training courses.  I've practiced yoga on and off for years, mostly as a part of my bellydance warm-up routine, sometimes in classes.  And if you know me, you would never say I have an easy time making decisions.  But somehow, this was a relatively easy decision to make.  Of course I agonized over it briefly, like I do everything from picking out shoes to picking out cheese at the grocery store.  I thought about it for hours and hours the first day it occurred to me, scouring the internet and freaking out, in computer-freakout-downward-spiral posture, which looks a little like this:

Not very yogic, to sit like that.  Makes it hard to breathe.

After my initial overwhelming search on the web, I skittered away from the whole idea, keeping it in the back of my mind. In a couple of weeks, after a couple more yoga classes, I called the studio that felt best to me. A little while later my teacher Michelle called me back, we chatted, she was fun, I took notes about the program. I went to her class the next weekend, and wrote a big check a couple of weeks later. After only one class I knew she would be the right teacher, and her studio would be the right place for me.  Honestly, it was the swearing that really sold me on it.  Any increase in laughter is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned.

In retrospect, I am shocked at my ability to make that decision.  I'd been waiting for a sign pointing towards the right path for me, and I never even stopped to read it when it finally appeared.  I threw myself onto it with a stick and a runaway bag (and a yoga mat), and despite the feeling of "Who AM I right now?  Is this happening?" it was an easy road to get on.  One of the details that really indicated the correctness of the whole thing was my inability to be slowed by even a tiny bit of apparent doubt from concerned parties.  Of which, there were few.  Past career ideas, when met with even the gentlest "Are you sure?" melted like butter in the sun, turning into a sad pile of former-ideas based on the vague uncertainty of someone else.  This time, a gentle "Are you sure?" was met with "YUP, and it's going to be AWESOME.  I feel GREAT." The longest holdout was my chiropractor, who originally thought I meant a weekend seminar that would leave me ineptly pretzel-ing the bodies of others.  She finally got it when I explained how I had just had an eight hour anatomy seminar (part one of many) the past weekend, and had a lot of homework to do.

The other surprising detail I noted about a month into the course was that I had essentially signed myself up for a PUBLIC SPEAKING venture.  That's not something I roll with, generally, and I am still impressed by my unconscious ability to squash that realization down until it was too late to turn back.

So I am participating in the 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training certification at Sanctuary Yoga in Plymouth.  It's a bit of a hike, but the drive doesn't bother me much.  It's time to listen to audiobooks while I drive there, and time to think about everything we discussed while I drive back.  And Plymouth is an adorable town with surprising New Age leanings.

Some of my hobbies have suffered from the resulting time crunch.  The harp - beautiful, majestic instrument that it is, is still languishing in silence.  My spinning wheel has been mostly untouched since I failed at Tour de Fleece in July. *  This is not for lack of interest, but mainly because my time has been limited.  It's so easy to pick up knitting for a few minutes before bed.  Not quite as easy to tune a 40-string harp, or oil and fidget with the settings on a spinning wheel.  These are the excuses I tell myself, but something I'm becoming more familiar with (thank you, yoga) is: What is the point of feeling badly about any of it?  What am I hurting by not playing my harp?  Nothing, except for my long-standing desire to be a talented musician.

*I love the idea of Tour de Fleece, but really? July?  If it's 90+ degrees and I have no AC, I'm going to be in a cold bath eating watermelon with my hands, not sweating all over wool roving.

Right now I am working on Bella's Mittens from Twilight for Liz (a belated birthday present, based on a "gift certificate" for something knitted of her choice).  Chunky mittens?  Go damn fast.  I am knitting the Daybreak shawl (pictured above) in Madelinetosh Sock in the Citrus and Warmth colorways.  I am still working on my Vine Yoke Cardigan**  I may cast on a shawl from my Estonian Lace book soon, but I am intimidated by having no wrong side to space out on!  I finished a pair of socks for Christopher with Socks that Rock I bought at STITCHES!***  I just finished a little elfy hat for myself from Tosh DK, which is not as slouchy as I might have liked, but still precious.

**I dreamed I finished my sweater last night, but I was also in a Hunger Games type scenario holed up in a supply closet hiding from aggressors, so I had plenty of time on my hands.
***Another post for another time.

This is my update for now.  A good start to the New Year, and I hope you all have a happy day (and a happy year).