controlled expression
Today BF is gaming and I’m at home. I still feel crummy but much better than yesterday.
This morning I went to teach, and I had one student: MD. For Christmas, one of my gifts to him was 4-6 private sessions of yoga with me – a suggestion of MM’s – and I have no idea at all why he decided to come this morning, since those are free and this morning’s was not. Nevertheless, there he was, and I had a terribly challenging time with him.
I hadn’t realized exactly how destructive it was to leave exercise entirely out of one’s life for years and years on end. Until this morning. I knew I’d have to start from the beginning with MD, but I had no clue how far below normal flexibility and strength someone could be. He couldn’t even raise his arms properly. Naturally I threw out my whole class plan and just did a baby introduction to yoga, but it was extremely difficult to figure out how to approach teaching him when there was so much he couldn’t do. If I taught restorative yoga, hey, no problem, but dynamic flow is what I’m best at, and that was not remotely suited for him.
I kept trying to think of what pose to do next, and I kept being stumped. Poses would fly into my head that were completely wrong for the situation; at one point my brain went “How about crow?” and the other side of my brain went ”CROW?? WTF are you thinking, crow?” I managed to work through the 90 minutes, but as I’d expected, he talked and asked questions through the entire thing, which is so not the dynamic I wanted.
It’s weird. I’ve always been a control freak (when you’re a little girl they just call you bossy), and I’ve tried hard to overcome it, but in teaching a class I’m able to embrace it. I feel like it’s my responsibility that everyone is safe, that everyone is doing the poses at their appropriate ability, that the energy stays up and that every minute of the class is accounted for, with no dead air. If anyone brings in comments, questions, whatever, it’s fine with me, as long as the class moves on and I’m the one moving it. MD is the kind of man who sort of naturally moves to the head of the line, who hasn’t worked for anyone else in decades, who leads conversations. I was pretty sure it would be difficult to set up a class dynamic with him where I was teaching and he was the student, but it still greatly bothered me to allow him to interrupt me the way he did. Don’t know what to do about that, whether it’s my problem or not.
He enjoyed the class and said he felt better afterward, energized and good. I told him he’d probably feel it in the shoulders tomorrow. He shrugged this off, but if there’s anything I know, it’s what you feel like the day after too many downward dogs. He has a terrible back and I hope I did some good rather than some harm to him. I hope, in general, that I can help him, but he is a hell of a challenge, especially to someone like me with zero therapeutic yoga training or experience.
Anyway. I’m planning to write a shoulder-opening class and a core-strengthening class for him, but I don’t know what I’ll do for the other ones. The same thing I did today, I guess: make shit up. I just hope he doesn’t come to any more of my Sunday mornings. In an actual vinyasa class environment he’d be a disaster.
I was planning to see Avatar in 3-D yesterday, but I changed my mind and relaxed instead. I have seen a few movies recently that I’ve enjoyed: Black Christmas, a 70′s horror flick that was surprisingly terrific, with a decent enough Margot Kidder playing the resident drunk-ass whore and a marvelous Olivia Hussey playing the Jamie Lee Curtis role in a doomed sorority house; Ballerina, a documentary about Russian ballet dancers that was beautiful but not remotely dirt-digging enough (I wanted to see their feet, and how much they ate); and How to Marry a Millionaire, with Grable, Bacall, and Monroe, which wasn’t as good as I’d hoped. If you feel at all insecure about yourself, don’t see Ballerina. I took a shower right after I saw it, and catching sight of myself in the mirror I felt like a cow compared to those itty bitty little dancers. I’m normal-looking enough, I just don’t have 2% body fat like they do and I’d been watching them for 90 minutes.
I slept funny on my neck, I think, and it’s popping slightly every damn time I look to the left. I think I might go and do a little yoga for myself. I miss practicing on my own, and the freedom that brings.
