Learning to ride a bike

Truth be told, I have spent a huge part of my life being afraid to ride a bike. Like my son, who is now 9 years old and still refuses to learn, I avoided riding a bicycle until my double digit years.

My late husband Aaron, gave me a hybrid road bike for my 27th birthday, just a few months before he tragically died of a rare adenocarcinoma. The day he gave it to me I cried and yelled at him. "This is a pressure gift" I said, with tears of shame rolling down my cheeks. Again, I refused to ride the steel stallion all but a few times.

I eventually rode it, with Aaron next to me on his road bike, from our loft to Advocate Illinois Masonic Hospital. We locked the bikes up outside, thinking his cough was nothing more than bronchitis, thinking we'd be back on the bikes to ride them home in a few hours. How wrong we were.

We never rode our bikes together again, and Aaron passed away 8 weeks later.

I took Aaron's parting gift with me when I returned home, back to Nantucket, to heal my grief stricken heart. It rarely saw the light of day.

A few years later, when I myself was diagnosed with cancer, I made a promise to God that if I made it through chemotherapy, I would learn, not only to ride that damn hybrid, I would learn to ride an actual road bike, like Aaron's and clip in. To cement the deal, I registered to ride the bike section of the Nantucket Iron Teams Relay race in June of 2014. I had never competed in a race of any kind, ever, but I figured throwing in this last part would motivate me to train, and might shore up my likelihood of surviving cancer.

To my great relief (and horror), I somehow made it through my first 14 rounds of Taxol, Herceptin and AC with "flying colors". I also survived major surgery and hormonal therapy and an additional 16 infusions of Herceptin. 6 months into treatment, It became apparent that I was slaying breast cancer, and soon it would be time to slay my debilitating FEAR of riding on skinny tires.

I had to keep my end of the bargain up.

The first time my friend Big Ed took me out on my new (used) steel Greg Le Monde 10-speed, we rode from my house in the Cicso area of Nantucket’s south shore, out to Sconset on the north east end and back. I averaged about 12mph, because that was as fast as my treatment-wrecked body could go. He patiently taught me how to unclip before slowing at an intersection and I remember how hard and fast my heart was beating. I was terrified.

Terrified, but thrilled, and I fell in love. I fell in love with cycling that very day and I am so grateful to have had that experience. Not just of falling in love with cycling, but of facing what had been a life-long fear.

I was so in thrall with riding, I signed up for the bike leg of the olympic length Nantucket Triathlon a month after finishing the Iron Teams Relay. My leg of the race was more miles than I had ever ridden at a single time, something around 30-miles. That seems like nothing now, but back then it sounded like running a marathon to me. Yet, I was a newbie, and I cruised along fueled by the power and inspiration of a new found love. With no pressure to set a record or win a ribbon, I was just grateful to be alive and on two wheels.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.
~Eleanor Roosevelt”

Fast forward through the last 5 years of riding road, to this weekend. To this moment, on Sunday, in the photo below, taken by my friend Burton Balkind, and here I am again, smiling at fear.

Photo by Burton Balkind

I had just traded in an old cyclocross bike for my first ever mountain bike the day before, and was getting ready to hit the trails with a group of experienced riders. I was smiling, fckn' scared, but smiling, and determined not to let fear get in the way.

I fell 3 times in the soft sand out by the beach on Sunday. I fell in in an embarrassingly slow motion surrender to the earth and my new (heavy) mountain steed pushed me deep into the Cisco sand. As I cornered around trees with handlebars much wider than I am used to, I saw my heart rate soar to a whopping 180bpm. I fought my way through some moments of bike handling anxiety, during a panic-induced trail ascent in Ram's Pasture, but I eventually I made it through the woods.

I rode my new freedom machine for an hour and began to settle into her foreign geometry. While there were indeed lows, there were also so many highs, which is why I firmly believe that it is important, no necessary, to do things that scare you as much as possible.

“Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson”

For me, earning to ride a bike was scary. So was going through breast cancer. But I got through both. I still get scared - all the time, but I think these days my muscles of resilience and determination are stronger.

At the end of next month, a group of riders from Nantucket are joining up with Destination Cycling to travel to Mallorca, Spain for 7 days of riding between 30 and 80 miles a day. There will be flats, beautiful rolling hills, and some days of heavy climbing. Some of our local riders have been going for years, yet I have always been too scared to sign up. So you know what I'm about to share:

This year, I signed up.

Listen, you are not alone. We all have fear. The trick is, not to let it stop you. Life is so short, and there's no way to anticipate what's coming around the next corner, so take your fear and turn it into fortitude. Do something, anything, that scares you as soon as possible, and you'll see. Like magic, it no longer has the power, you do.

You have the power.

After the Nantucket Triathlon 2014, with my first road bike - a vintage steel LeMond.

Teach Them Young

No doubt about it, parenting is challenging.

I gave birth to Griffin at home, in table pose, on a well-worn yoga mat. We were in front of the fire, in the middle of the living room. The mat was green, well-worn and was the only thing between me and the floor during Griffin’s lighting speed, two-hour delivery.

You probably know which mat it is: It’s the one with the large tree and floating leaves. Gaiam had it on sale with a matching mat bag several years ago. I’m sure a million people have the same one. Mine was special enough to me to be one of the few things I needed during labor. I had taken it with me on my pilgrimage to Santa Barbara nine months earlier, to the White Lotus Foundation, where it comforted me consistently during the transformative experience that was my first yoga teacher training.

Its California wear and tear soothed me during that riveting night in December of 2009. I still have it—though it now bears the even more poignant markings of Griffin’s birth. I didn’t know it then, but that night, on that mat, a new kind of practice was born.

He loves building towers out of yoga blocks, and skates over the studio’s hardwood floors in his socks. It’s not unusual for him to join in at the end of one of my classes for savasana and a chant an Om or two.

It wasn’t always this way though. Back in 2009, pregnant with Griffin, I made a ridiculous decision that being a Mom wasn’t going to change my yoga.

Wow, was that naive.

It’s difficult to admit (and still makes me feel guilty from time to time) but I struggled with postpartum depression. I resented my own child for taking away my me time, and I resented the world for what I then saw as a detour of my dharma from teaching to parenting.

I labored to find any sort of balance in my life, and I was angry. It took me the first year and a half of Griffin’s life to figure out how to bring my yoga practice and parenting together. But eventually I surrendered to the inevitability that my practice was going to include my son, and being a mother was going to require a serious shift in how I would navigate the rest of my life.

Since then, I have made it a conscious decision to incorporate Griffin into the very essence of what I hope to accomplish with my practice: a deeper sense of equanimity, and alignment with integrity. And so whenever possible I bring him into the fold.

Yoga began for me, as it does for many of us, as a collection of beautiful poses. Then it became a collection of tools I used to build and shape my life, and today shape the way I build my life with my loved ones.

I think this is a common experience.

For many of us it begins with the asanas—we practice and reap the physical benefits, the feel-good highs and the calming moments of stillness. And then, like magic, it turns into something more: a level head, a quieter mind, a meditation practice, a change in diet, or a commitment to healthier mindful living. Maybe we dig a little deeper and study up on the traditional teachings.

If we can integrate our practice into how we run our homes and work our relationships, our children absorb yoga by proxy.

Yogas Citta Vritti Nirodhah

Yoga is the resolution of the agitations of the mind

I recently took a workshop with Raghunath in Boston, and he started out his dharma talk by speaking to this very evolution. He reminded us that while we were there to practice asana, we were really there to use the practice to clear the vritti, or fluctuations of the mind, and that this could be best accomplished with the breath.

In my practice I have found that indeed, the moments when we slow down our breath, we can slow down the vritti and find a self-awareness that resides only within spaciousness.

“Yoga is a way of moving into stillness in order to experience the truth of who you are.” ~Erich Schiffmann

When Griffin gets upset now, I’ll hold him and ask him to look into my eyes and breathe with me. Sometimes I put his hand on my chest, and rest mine on his. I try to help him find space between his cries or complaints and simultaneously put a pause on my own reactivity. It doesn’t always work, but sometimes all it takes is a little pranayama and touch, and my amped-up toddler will calm himself down to a place in which we can both be still. We are together practicing mindfulness.

“Mindfulness frees us of forgetfulness and dispersion and makes it possible to live fully each minute of life. Mindfulness enables us to live.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

No doubt about it, parenting is challenging.

It’s one of the hardest (and most rewarding) jobs on the planet. It’s difficult not to take a toddler’s temper tantrum personally, or stay calm in the midst of a Stop N’ Shop Def Con 5–sized meltdown.

Many of us parents find ourselves pressed for time and end up multitasking three or four different things in any given moment—folding the laundry while helping the toddler get his breakfast down, or answering e-mails on our iPhones, while skimming Huffington Post on the desktop and answering questions about the day’s itinerary. It’s all forgivable, but it’s not very mindful. There is no room for space in a torrent of activity like this and it can make usand our children feel claustrophobic.

Now when I find myself having a day like this, my yoga practice reminds me I’m not in alignment with my beliefs.

Multitasking, no matter how time-saving it may feel, produces half-baked ideas and an overcrowded mind. It’s ultimately anxiety-producing.

And it’s not yoga.

The next time you get caught-up in the whirlwind of your “life”/the vritti, practice bringing your attention back to the present moment. Invite into your heart the practice of mindfulness. You will be rewarded with tiny or not so tiny arms wrapped around you, keeping warm and grateful and grounded in a shared experience of the present moment.

“May we learn to allow the stillness in our hearts to live in our minds.” ~Elena Brower

Your children will learn. When you set a positive, mindful, spacious example for them when they are young, they will learn and lift off that much earlier and soar before your eyes.

Enough Love.

Self-doubt hasn’t always been my worst enemy. There have been many times in my life when I have felt grounded and strong, confident and full. I’ve had “important” jobs and respectable earnings. I’ve had fulfilling friendships, and raging romantic relationships. I’ve had critical acclaim, and glowing reviews, approved graduate school applications, academic scholarships and positive survey feedback. And there have even been times in my life when I’ve had all of these things simultaneously. More importantly, I have had times in my life in which I have felt a deep sense of fulfillment from the inside out. I’ve liked where I was and who I was and I’ve loved what I was doing. I was enough. Maybe not enough for a star on Hollywood Boulevard, but enough for me. 

Sadly in the last couple of years, self-confidence has been in short supply… somewhere along the path that has been my recent adult life, I’ve lost my self-love mojo. Ironic for a yoga teacher who regularly posits in class that self-acceptance and compassion are the self are key components of living a mindful and healthy life. Believe me when I tell you there has been no lack of reflection on this twist.

Maybe it started with a string of unsuccessful career choices. Or loosing a husband to Cancer. Or living with an emotionally cut-off alcoholic.  I’m sure there was a lot of self-loathing going on when grief-stricken and bereft, I found myself snorting cocaine off the back of a toilet in a dive bar in Chicago, and unfortunately it didn’t stop even when the drug use did. Maybe it really began when I broke trust with myself, and rushed into a second marriage, still full of grief over the last one. I’m sure my self-doubt was doubled when in my relatively small community I went through a fairly publicly discussed divorce. But for whatever (many) reason(s), somewhere in the not so distant past I seemed to really loose my sense of self and began consistently looking for external validation. I started to feel unworthy of true happiness, love, and santosha (contentment).

Sure, there were moments in between now and then when I felt satiated, fulfilled and worthy of love. Bringing my son into this world, naturally and nearly unassisted, felt like nothing short of a miracle, and yet even that accomplishment’s glow wore off quickly. Completing my yoga teacher training felt satisfying – to a degree… but I had plenty of doubts about even that; was 200 hours really enough training to call myself a teacher? what did I have to share with my students anyway? who was I to be leading a class? etc.

Then in late 2010 I found myself unexpectedly falling hard in love again, and the hole in my heart felt temporarily full. Of course, it wasn’t long after the flush of fresh love began to calm, that fear and insecurity crept back into my heart, and I started to feel unworthy again. Not a few months into my new domestic bliss (summer 2011) did I begin to feel tripped up by doubt and insecurity. Fear around trust nearly broke everything apart, and though part of me would like to add “for good reason”, the rest of me knows that there wasn’t one. All of a sudden I didn’t feel pretty enough, or smart enough, successful enough or spiritually evolved enough. I began to think that I didn’t meditate enough, or hadn’t traveled enough. That I didn’t have enough accolades or degrees, or missions of seva and global activism in my resume. I began to think I wasn’t interesting, and felt like I had nothing to share. I stopped talking at dinner parties, and began resenting people for their own exciting stories, careers, adventures or vacations. I started to believe I didn’t have enough to offer my partner, my students, or my friends.

Well enough is enough.

So I’m making a proclamation right now, in broad internet daylight, that the buck stops here. The self-doubt and feelings of unworthiness stop NOW. The truth is, I am more than my past failed relationships, my divorce and my losses. I am more than my up-in-the-middle-of-the-night worry that I might not be the best mother to my toddler son. I am more than my measly 30-thousand dollar annual income. I am vulnerable and I am strong. I am a novice at some things, and an expert at others. I cry, but I laugh. Some nights I have nightmares, but many nights I have big beautiful dreams. I have fears but I have many more hopes. I have trauma in my past, but I have done more than just survive it. And YES, I have major issues with trust – but I’m WORKING on them.

I might not have a three figure salary, or a CV full of humanitarian service work in third world countries – but I do have an interesting list of skills and interests.

I am a great mom. I’m a really good massage therapist, and I’m working diligently at becoming a good yoga teacher. I have a strong commitment to a spiritual path, and I really believe in living as mindfully as possible. I love music of nearly all kinds, modern dance, photography and art. Prior to motherhood I was fairly politically active. I’m a good cook and I can talk about wine. I’ve lived in several major cities, including New York, Chicago and Paris, and I can paint you a pretty exciting picture of my travels through the Netherlands, Berlin, Belgium, and the Czech Republic. I once spent 6 months traveling through Ireland all by myself. I’ve been a house painter, fishmonger, prop stylist, studio manager, and choreographer. I’ve worked as a photo researcher and photo editor for major magazines including the New York Times Magazine, Fortune and Newsweek, and once upon a time (1999) my  modern dance company, headlined the Nantucket Arts Festival. I gave birth to my son 100% naturally, at home, on a yoga mat, in 2.5 hours with nearly zero assistance. I really like skinny dipping in the ocean. I once smoked pot with David Byrne. I was married to one of the most amazing martial artists I’ve ever known, who just happened to love working out and training with me. Consequentially I can deliver a pretty kick-ass muay thai knee strike. Every day I spend a considerable amount of time balancing on my hands, forearms or head, and I love being up-side-down. I used to play the piano with passion, and I still secretly love singing.

So as it turns out, I am more rich in beautiful experiences than tragic ones – and from here on out, I’m going to start identifying myself more with the former than with the later.

Here’s an amazingly powerful quote I read today; “those who have a strong sense of love and belonging BELIEVE they are WORTHY of love and belonging.”

Today I believe I am enough for my son. Today I believe I am enough for my partner. And today, I am enough for myself.

I am enough.

I am enough.

I am enough. 

THE DAILY MEDITATION

photo by Katie Kaizer

Let’s be honest. Yoga, like life, is a practice, and I am far from practicing either perfectly. I’ll be the first to admit that I have ridiculously high expectations for myself, and I’m really good at beating myself up when I fall short. I want to be able to do things, most things, (okay, everything) well, if not specatularly well. And when I don’t, which I won’t, because I can’t, I get frustrated and discouraged. And believe me, I know that as a yoga teacher this isn’t exactly politically correct to admit. I’m not supposed to be goal-oriented or ego-driven. In fact, I’m supposed to be non-judgmental, patient and compassionate with everyone, including myself. I’m accepting and understanding of everything, and I embrace all sentient living creatures with equal amounts of love. But let’s be real for a moment? It’s just not that easy.

As yogis and yoginis we hope to practice the yamas (non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, moderation and non-hoarding) and live a life full of mindfulness, and compassion. It is a noble aspiration be as mindful of our first breath as our the last, and all the breaths we take in between. For most of us, there will be breaths that will stack up as hugely alert (focused pranayam, the first breath drawn after a 90 second hold beneath the waves, an exhale which crowns a baby’s head, a gasp taken in horror or ecstasy, or the last sigh before the soul leaves the body). Others, here and there, are simply stolen from the atmosphere on autopilot, our attention diverted to the many other things swirling around in our minds. When we practice mindfullness we try to be  aware of as many breaths as possible.

Whether it’s adhering to a schedule of daily asana and/or meditation, taking my 2 year-old to the beach, or finding time to fold and put away 3 loads of laundry, one of the things that gets in my way is my desire to  do it all. Things, sometimes many, fall by the wayside-because that’s what happens with life, and  I often feel disappointed I when I don’t accomplish more. I feel bad when I don’t make time to study, and worse when I haven’t had an opportunity to reflect on my spiritual path. And I think that because I am a yoga teacher, there are times I feel an additional pressure, to navigate through my life with fundamentalist’s fever. I either berate myself when my mindfulness slips and slides: when I say something judgmental about someone, get angry at my partner, feel enraged when someone hurts my feelings, or yell at my child. Real yoga teachers don’t loose their patience with their off-spring, do they? Well, yes – actually… they do. I’ve asked around. We do. And I’m going to be honest with you: I do too.

If I don’t punish myself for being a “better yogi”, I might find myself pushing back against the practice with a rebelliousness that harkens to my angry, jaded and nihilistic 20’s: So I passed a judgment, I might say to myself, so what…everybody else does. I lost my temper; um, well he did yesterday…and so on. But this response is childish, and no less toxic that the aforementioned self-flagellation. So I remind myself, as I’m doing here, in print, that letting up on myself is the better option, and every day presents us with yet another opportunity to recommit to the path of mindfulness.

The truth is, I make mistakes. We all do. And maybe you haven’t, but I’m going to venture a guess that you’ve probably lied at some point, such as I have. I’ve stolen. I’ve acted out of jealousy, and anger. I’ve been competitive in my asana practice and envious of other teachers and students. I am extremely insecure from time to time, and especially depending on where I am in my cycle I can be emotionally unpredictable and even volatile. I don’t floss my teeth every night, and I haven’t used a neti in months. I once lost my patience with my late husband, who was dying of cancer, and asked me for a glass of water at the end of a very trying day. I yelled at him. He was dying. Did I mention he was dying? He forgave me, because he hadn’t an ounce of anger, resentment or judgement left in his body those last few weeks, he was already moving into a more enlightened state of consciousness. I didn’t forgive myself for years.

I got there, eventually, because I finally accepted that I couldn’t carry that kind of pain around with me and be the kind of person I want to be. I knew that at the time, (27 and on the brink of losing someone I was very much in love with) I did the very best I was capable of. There are other things I haven’t accepted yet, and travesties I haven’t forgiven yet but maybe, with time, and practice, I’ll get there too.

I might not, at this point in my life, be able to take a month-long retreat to India, or Bali, or some other exotic spiritual destination, nor can I bow out of my parenting responsibilities and instead bow to the feet of a guru, or keep my every thought focused on devotional intentions – and actually, if I’m honest – I don’t want to. But I can work here, within the context of my pretty awesome life, and practice meaningfully within the scope of my relationships. I can be a yoga teacher, and a yoga student. A mother and a lover.Shiva and  Shakti. I can practice patients with my son. I can practice thoughtfulness with my partner. And I can practice engaging with the people in and around me with compassion and love. My practice will not be perfect. But I am committed to being the best possible me I can possibly be.

My partner recently told me that he wasn’t interested in being in a relationship with someone content to settle for less. It’s a good thing I’m not either.

THE ARTFUL SANKALPA

photo by Graham Swindell

Thursday night I had the opportunity to practice at the studio, not something I get to do often late in the week, so it was a real treat. Especially because It seems like ever since I completed the 60 Day Yoga Challenge back on the 10th of December, my asana practice has kind of fallen off the mat, and it’s amazing to me how having external motivators in place, like a challenge, can totally change the way we, or I as it were, approach self-discipline. Anyway, I was super psyched when I arrived at the Yoga Room to see that Susan had written the word Sankalpa on the dry-erase board, which is the Sanskrit word for will, purpose or determination, how perfect.

Sankalpas are intentions, similar to resolutions, and yet quite different. Sankalpas are often positive things we wish to cultivate – like peace, compassion, love, or truthfulness. Resolutions, on the other hand, are often about decreasing something, giving an indulgence up like alcohol, fatty foods, sugar, or TV… sometimes a list of New Years resolutions can feel like punishment, or self-denial.

So in this way,  a sankalpa is actually the opposite of a resolution. It’s about increasing not decreasing. And the process of creating more space for our intentions to grow, instead of the often difficult task of giving something up.  Sankulpas foster positive self-image, whereas resolutions can run the risk of making you feel like you’ve been perpetually coming up short.

Here we are on the cusp of yet another new beginning. And whether you believe this is the dawn of just another new day – which in itself is still a miracle, or if you celebrate New Year’s Eve as the end of one year, and beginning of a new chapter in your life, it is without a doubt a time when many people take a moment to reflect on the past and look towards the future with fresh eyes. The end of the December presents us with a  chance to re-evaluate where we are in our lives, our relationships, our careers and of course, our practice. So if writing down a list of resolutions is not your cup of tea, perhaps thinking about the sankalapas you wish to cultivate in the year to come will get you closer to a place of greater equanimity.`

Anyway, however deep your intentions are, or long your list or resolutions may be, I wish you many powerful and compassionate sankalaps in the year 2012. May your New Years Eve celebrations allow you a moment to be grateful for all that you have, and all the beautiful things to come.

I celebrated earlier this evening, as Griffin, Burr and I watched a Fantasia-esuqe sunset over Cisco beach on the Western side of Nantucket. The moment flooded my heart with love and gratitude as I watched my two most special people smile at the simplicity of the setting sun. Griffin excitedly  pointed to the great ball of fire in the sky exclaiming “hot” over and over again, while a big bright rainbow spanned the horizon behind us. It was the perfect ending to a transformative year.

Many thanks to all my friends, family, students, teachers and mentors for all there continued support. To my son, for giving me a reason so much bigger than myself to continue down the path of Self-realiztion. And to my partner, for nurturing me along the way.

Body Attachment

photo by Katie Kaizer

I am attached to my body.

This might seem like an obvious statement (most of us are pretty attached), but it’s actually something I’ve been working to let go of for a long, long time. Not my body, the attachment that is. My body comes in real handy when I have to lift the baby from his crib, go to the grocery store, or demonstrate a posture in class. All sorts of spiritual gurus and leaders tout the benefits of practicing non-attachment, but it’s so much harder than anything I’ve worked towards, including my undergraduate degree, passing the NCTMB, learning a solid Chataranga, or even the still-ellusive handstand.

Non-attachment is a real bitch.

So anyway, several years into this process, I’m still pretty attached to my body, and lately it’s been grossly self-evident. Last week I started off my Tuesday with my first ever mammography. Then on Wednesday I had an MRI of my left knee done (the same knee with the injury that ended my dance career in 2000), followed by a CT of my left ankle, which I have now broken twice in the same spot, once in 1989 and again when pregnant with my son in August of 2009. Needless to say I was feeling tremendously attached to the outcome of all these diagnostic procedures, and began to experience intense empathy for my body’s soft tissue.

At some point by Thursday I was in the full throws of what-if’s. What if I can’t do massage work this summer? What if I can’t teach yoga? What if I can’t practice myself? What if I have a malignant breast tumor ? What if, what if, what if…

I began to get upset. I worked myself into a emotional tizzy. My knee began to hurt, my ankle started to swell, and in my agitated limbic state, the area of discomfort on my right breast started to grow. All in a matter of moments. Fuck, I thought. I’m so super attached to my body!  This expletive was quickly followed by another in the form of:  Shit! I’m trying not to swear!

Hang on, let’s just pause for a moment. I would like to state for the record that in the last year I have given up all meat and seafood, alcohol, and most dairy products. Despite having a partner who would like it better if we both gave up stimulants and bad language…  I must continue to swear while eating chocolate and drinking coffee just to keep myself interesting to other people.

Anyway, I started to think about my physical self, my physical life, work and play, and what it would be like to loose temporarily or permantely my athletic ways of navigating through the world. Sadness and panic rushed into my chest. Everything got tighter, and I began to feel a little wheezy. This was an absolutely amazing moment.

I realized that however I might deny it to myself or others, I  am profoundly caught up in my yoga body, which is really just a newer, more insidious version of my old dancer body- and all its issues. As it turns out, my sense of self is directly tied into what I can do with my body, and my body has literally grown into who I am and how I support myself and my family. Some of this is simply fact: as in, I need my hands, fingers and elbows to do good deep tissue work. But some of this is really old shit I need to let go of: like, I must not be a good yogi if I can’t do adho mukha vrkasana.

So, time to check that attachment thing again, and recommit to thinking outside the musculoskeletal box! After all there are plenty of yoga poses you can do with one good knee, or ankle, or boob.

And just when I think I’ve gone beyond the need for a perfect Chatarunga, I catch myself thinking, well my Bird of Paradise has gotten really good lately! And off it goes- my mind and it’s monkey.

Ah well, one un-attached foot in front of the other. One day at at time.