There's a weird effect to practicing yoga where you freaking love it, then stop doing it for a while and think that's quite alright, too, maybe I can do alright like this, then you come back to it and it blows your mind what a lazy fucker you could be. Everyone I talk to who knows it says it the same way - I haven't done any in a while, but I really should, and they do, and then it's like fucking hell, I forgot how good this was. It's like a drug. But positive.
Anyway, that's a roundabout way of saying I'm back on my mat. I took a break from my practice while I was doing that dance workshop at the beginning of November and it just carried over. I'd picked up my practice a few days before, but somehow wasn't feeling it. I had trouble sitting still, I needed to jump, to move faster. Faster. Faster.
Except that doesn't work like that.
I was gonna use a picture of myself being a warrior in the park last summer, but that quality's shit. Or a picture of me with a cutout of Putin - got connection baby - at the Russian Institute last year. But somehow, that don't feel right either rn. So here. A picture of Dali's wife.
But then, I switched on YouTube, like I do 'cause I like a guided practice, and there was this video. I don't really go for foundation videos anymore, and I've never had any particular affinity towards Peaceful Warrior. Yet for whatever reason, I went with it, and boy, was I glad I did.
It was one of those ideal moments that come like tiny packaged revelations that you don't expect at all. Physically, it was just the practice I needed, not too still, but not too exhaustive either (back's telling me to wrap up this fucking story I'm writing and go for a walk soon). It was perfect, but the place I resonated best, as is so often the case, was on an emotional level.
It was a few days ago, a particularly angry day, news-wise. It seems I'm falling prey to manipulation tactics, but knowing that doesn't help much when the information they're shooting at you is true. And this madness in Ukraine was weighing on my mind. This is where the guns come through. Here. But I suppose that doesn't really matter. If these idiots don't stop poking the bear soon, it probably won't matter which way the guns come in and who's closest.
Peaceful warrior, indeed.
I went in scowling at the irony, as I started. yet the deeper I went into it, the more the irony dissipated. As did fear. Warrior poses are extremely grounding poses, as the name suggests. They're strength-suggesting poses, and for me in that moment, standing in my warrior pose, I felt imbued with such strength, such confidence. Thoughts of my grandmother who survived a world war, a coup d'etat and fifty years of filthy communism. My grandfather who, for all his faults, survived turning against a vicious, oppressive system. Survived jail. My parents and all the people in my line who came before so that I could stand here now, in this body. I felt fuck this, we're gonna survive whatever comes.
You can't walk through life scared, and complete pacifism (in the sense of helplessness) is not much better either. You've got to be, as the name of the pose suggests, peaceful in intention, but a warrior if needs be.
My practice that evening also helped bring me back to my body, as they all do (and yet, as my last few before hadn't really managed to). It reminded me that you're not really responsible for the world, for the disaster that comes or the good, or the lies,or the many bad things in this world. What you are responsible for, however, is your own life, your own existence and how you respond to the world.
It starts in the body. You can't let them get inside your body (or your mind. or your heart). But that requires active stewardship on your part. You learn to protect yourself, or let them run you. Can't have it both ways.
Fuck. I missed my mat.
