Forwards and Backwards.

In an Intermediate done outside, I have officially re-lost the Kapo toe grab and officially gained the Dwi Pada balancing portion (Dwi Pada A). I am now surrendering the whole practice, because I’ve been reading too much Bhagavad Gita commentary.

Really this makes two solid years of Kapo determination, with somewhat of a lukewarm, experimental third year of curiosity before then. Two Years, Kapo? Seriously? And while in April you were letting me slowly, SLOWLY sneak the hands up the feet, today you plunk me into the mat, with the old claustrophobia and the hip flexors that feel like shiny unbendable aluminum?

Perhaps it was the move outside, or the move from sticky Jade to unsticky cotton rug, or the fact that I’ve only dropped-and-stood one time this week (although I have backbent every day since Monday).

I’m so sick of myself BEING sick of that pose that the whole business makes me want to toss my cookies. I don’t want to plan about it, research it, do it, get it, not get it, I don’t fucking want anything to do with that pose anymore, ever. And it’s not just the pose at all, it’s like I don’t want to be in my Kapo headspace anymore, I’m so fucking sick of the whole quest that I wish I could just lobotomize the entire memory and desire complex associated with it.

I’ll breathe, bend, take my ten (Kapo A and B) and then get on with everything else.
No more. I’m fucking finished with sweating that pose.

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Tim showed us the research poses (duck head under knee, while in Vira A position, take Viswamitrasana and exit, enter Eka Pada from Kasyapasana position) on Friday last week.

Today–which is a Thursday–the ability to balance Dwi Pada A showed up. It was a cool entry, because the sun was slightly behind me, and so I could actually SEE the left foot for once NOT SLIP OUT, and I could WATCH the bind happen. “Holy crap, this is going to happen. Right now.” And then it did. I had to pin my gaze like a laser on a little loop of red cotton on my rug, but then the gaze “held me up” as I took the hands off and up to prayer position. 12345. Balance.

So that was cool. Six days for a new pose to show up. True, my feet are flexed and clasped, not pointed as is ideal, but what works, I will take.

Did up through Karanda, tried to lower the lotus to 90 degrees, did so but could not sustain the balance, and then did backbends. Two sets of three, four dropbacks, no stand ups (trying to “inch toward it” as Owl recently wrote).