Short term memory
22/07/2009
Today, after work, after the rain, after yet another trashy segment of Today Tonight, I put my mat down for the first time in 3 weeks.
I returned to a full class of almost 50 along with trepidations of a new beginner. The past few weeks of late nights, glutton indulgences and irresponsible ignorance had me retreating all the way to the back rows. I looked to the front row and the tiny empty corner where I used to lay my mat, my heart ached. After all the punishment I had recently put my body through, I bore absolutely no expectations coming into this class and I know it will take a while, maybe even a long time, for me to have the confidence to practise in the front row again.
The first 55 minutes of the class went surprisingly well; I did fall out of Standing Bow, but I did not sit out on Triangle; Even though my heart was racing in all directions, I did not collapse in the heat.
Towards the end of the Standing Series, sweat was pouring into my eyes and I was distracted by the yogi next to me who, frantically rolled up her mat and trudged out of the room.The teacher brought everyone’s attention back to the room by saying, “Find your own eyes in the mirror, still your mind, still your heart.”
I eventually found my own eyes in a sea of heaving, distracted yogis, and smiled. I thought I have lost it, I thought it, too, had abandoned me, along with my confidence and my fitness. But behind those dark brown eyes, I recognised that familiar flicker. The exact same flicker of determination that encouraged me to kick off my first yoga challenge, and accompanied me over and over again when I used to practise 5-6 times a week over the past few months; through Melbourne heat waves, winter rain storms, heartaches, anniversaries, birthdays, frigid mornings and bad days.
Hello old friend, I need you now more than ever….
My confidence might have depleted but my body….oh boy, my body remembered. Those long, lean muscles that I have worked so hard for in the past few months awoke from their long slumber and resurfaced, they stretched and pulled so beautifully in the heat it felt as if I had never left the hot room.
I rewarded myself with a long Savasanah before slowly peeling myself off my mat.
I looked to my old little corner in the front row, and thought to myself: “Soon enough, soon enough….”
