I've been a bit MIA recently. I started a new short-term contract job on October 4 and it's all been a bit bonkers, settling into that, negotiating a new commute, dealing with other health issues that have cropped up (don't get me started on the molar breakage that occurred at lunch while at a yoga workshop!) and sorting out some stuff I hope to be able to talk about in a couple of weeks time. Oh, and getting my passport renewed so I can actually leave the country again... However, I have been doing lot of yoga still. After August's slight debacle, I had to keep up the good work - it was too grim restarting again.
I had a really wonderful mysore class this weekend, though, and things have been getting better and better on that front. I turned up late to the Hutch, feeling pretty grotty after a gnarly IBS attack on Thursday (which I'm still recovering from) and thinking I'd only do the standing sequence. As it turned out, I can't help myself, and I worked my way through the whole primary series slowly but surely, punctuated with lots of feeling sorry for myself and heavy breathing and sitting on the mat looking pathetic.
Afterwards, I was lying there in savasana, listening to Sarah talk to another student (the only one left besides me!) and what she said really spoke to me. After I'd come out of savasana, I said so to her, and then (as I seem to do regularly) cried a bit. It was just that the things she said were so akin to what I believe yoga - and everything, really - should be, and I found it a bit shocking that I had managed to find someone who feels so similar.
Sarah believes that yoga is much more than the practice on the mat, that we need to show ourselves compassion in our lives on and off the mat, that no one should judge anyone else for what they can and can't do. I have never heard her once shame anyone for the way they look or the things they can do (which depressingly I am aware does happen often in other exercise classes!) and spends her time helping people make incremental improvements to their practice and find the things that they need to focus on. For instance, she tells me I need to build strength, another lady she says has a practice all about sensation, another one she said was about focus. She doesn't talk about weight loss, she doesn't tell you you can't do it, she thinks about modifications and adjustments and is generally a very kind person. I try and listen to her, basically.
We talked for about an hour after class, me, her and the other lady in the class, about teacher training, about the whole 'Instayogi' thing and I said I thought it was so surprising I'd managed to find a teacher that held values like hers. She said no, it was always going to happen, that the things that matter to an individual lead them to the right teacher for them. That the compassion I have for others drew me to her, and to my other teacher (who has a background teaching yoga to kids with autism).
She said she would give me a reference (I had had a chat with her daughter the week before and her daughter I should ask her for one, and I said I was too scared!) and told me that she would write in it something along the lines of that I would be an amazing candidate and that although the physical stuff doesn't always come easy to me I am a committed student who takes direction and wants to do it for the right reasons. That's not exactly what she said, as it was yesterday and I've already forgotten, but it meant so much to me.
While I was practicing she also told me that she's noticed I really take what she says and do it, and said to the other student (who is a trained teacher) 'doesn't everyone want someone like that in their class?' :D :D :D And she also said my practice had skyrocketed in terms of progress recently (but reminded me that a plateau will come) and basically left me feeling extremely happy in the corner.
After leaving my last job, I followed my other teacher to the studio she teaches at in Mortlake (The Yoga Hub), and started taking classes from her there. I go to a vinyasa flow on Saturday afternoons, followed by a yin class straight after. I'm currently finishing up a '30 days for £45 offer' but despite best efforts I've not yet made it to any other classes than hers - though I'm hoping to get to a jivamukti and then a slow flow class after work on Thursday. I actually also cancelled this weekend's classes, mainly because this IBS had laid me a bit low, and going over there was just too much. I got through mysore and probably could have got through those two, but it would have been really tiring and tough and then tramping back home would have just been too much.
Tammy's encouraged me to try other teachers at the Hub, and I do get why, but I'm really mainly there for her (in a thoroughly non-creepy way, of course). I really enjoy her style and personality, and I don't want to lose touch with her, even if Mortlake is not the most convenient for me (I have a mysore class on Saturday mornings and then have to drag myself over there in the afternoon to do vinyasa flow - where I inevitably fail to manage to do all the vinyasas, as I'm already knackered from the morning - and then yin (which is really chill, if a lot busier than my monthly workshop!).
She also kindly said she'd give me a reference for my teacher training, and part of that reference has to say how often I take class with that person, so if I let it slide I won't be able to ask her. Lots of complexity there, and though I don't know how long I'll manage to last doing this, I will do my best!
I'm trying to get back on the wagon as far as everything else is concerned - I went back to Pilates today for the first time in months. It wasn't too hard, but I did notice that as compared to the previous few years, there's something missing there for me, which is probably to do with the amount of yoga I do and the holistic element to yoga that I've discovered, as opposed to Pilates, which is pretty much just an exercise class. But it's really good for you and I used to properly love it, so I hope I can integrate it back into my life. Just doing yoga won't keep me fit, after all. And I want to reverse what I've done to my body in the last year - mainly stress related - and get back to feeling fit more than just a little bit of the time.