Spring Cleaning - Day 3

I didn't end up practicing early yesterday. I called my friend Noelle to see if she wanted to go with me to Castle Hill and practice Mysore at 6 a.m. She had too much work to get done. She also is trying to get on board again with the early morning practice. We Ashtangis are relentless in our desire to pursue discipline ... not so relentless in our follow-through at the moment. I sort of have an excuse (Don't we always?) in that I taught a 6 a.m. on Tuesday, worked, taught an 11 a.m. and then drove to San Antonio to make a presentation at a conference. Three hours in a car added onto an already packed day. I pretty much collapsed with MoJo after reading her a story and didn't wake up until 8 a.m.
It's still an excuse, though. So I made up for (at least) the lack of practice by taking a 4 p.m. vinyasa class and teaching a prenatal at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
This morning was another story. I had the alarm set for taking Tim's vinyasa at bFree at 6 a.m., and then MoJo barreled into the room at 5 a.m. crying. Not sure if she was having a bad dream or a tantrum or both, but mother's guilt made me stay. I did get a practice in on the living room rug after she had calmed down and had gone back to sleep, though. The hardest thing to do is practice yoga by yourself.
Baby steps.
One of the reasons I think it's hard to practice yoga on one's own is that we humans are pack animals. We love to move, play, learn and sing together. I see evidence of that in my toddler. For the longest time, she would only "go potty" in a group setting. It's one of the reasons why I called Noelle, not because I needed the commitment to another to get my goal accomplished, but because it's more fun when you have a buddy - or lots of them - participating. I just finished reading this book called "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall. I haven't been a runner in a long time. The last time I ran was when I was on the crew team in college. I love to hike, though. This book changed my mind about a lot of things, because he brings in anecdotal examples of ultra-marathoners and then bolsters his theories about the evolution of mankind with some scientific evidence -physiological and anthropological. Many of his points revolved around this thought, that we evolved to run, hunt, walk and rear our children together. We aren't very fast, but we've got the endurance and compiled brainpower to make things happen. The problem is this: We can run at a slow jog for a few days, but if our brains start trying to seek out and eek out efficiencies in our energy output, we need each other to egg us on and talk our individual brains out of their separate desires to economize. This is why a large yoga class will work so hard and get so sweaty, because without a word said, everyone knows they are in it together. When you're by yourself, you end up hanging out in savasana and balasana a lot. They have their benefits, but the energy output is definitely less.