Obsession

It was the first chilly Sunday morning of the fall, and I was anxious to get to yoga. 

The weekend class is one of my favorite classes. It is the perfect hour, still morning but late enough to have time to laze around a bit.

 

It is crowded; the people are all friendly, and the class lasts longer than usual. There is something about the large group and the extra 15 minutes.

From the start, the energy is high, and it's catching.

We move from pose to pose with the instructor taking us through many different sequences.

 

We moved from Yoga Squat to Crow to Warrior III. We flow from Warrior II to Triangle Pose. We inhale and exhale with each movement, and it never crosses my mind to look at the clock on the wall.

 

Regardless, this clock has all its numbers in a heap at the bottom with a quote that says, Who cares?

 

This particular weekend, my mind was at ease. It was a welcome relief as it had been busy, busy, busy in the brain.

 

The past few weeks had been somewhat overwhelming, and it seemed that my mind was only resting when I slept. Even then, I am not sure my sleep counted as rest as some of what I was busy with seemed to be appearing in my dreams!

 

We are going to move from one pose to another without thinking, the instructor said. Don’t over think it. Just move into it. The body will know what to do if you don’t think too hard.

 

We pop down from standing into a Yoga Squat, low to the ground with feet hip-width distance apart and hands in prayer at the heart.

 

We move right into Crow, tilting forward, hands finding the mat, knees tucking under the arms, and feet lifting off the ground.

 

We pop back up, lifting the right knee to the chest, grabbing the ankle with the right hand and moving into Dancer, the body in a standing backbend with one leg lifted behind the head. 

 

We stand once more and reach to the sky, then we step the feet apart and pop back down into a Yoga Squat.  

No time to think. No time to stop.

If you think too hard, it can stop you from what you are doing, the instructor continued as we continued the flow on the other side. 

In the past, even the recent past, I have found myself in times where too much thinking has stopped me from what I am doing. It 's like being on a rollercoaster in the brain, and it is precious time lost, that is for certain.

 

Always, when things settle down, I look back and wonder how I could let myself hop on such a ride. 

 

We stand in my favorite pose, Warrior II, legs stretched from front to back in a lunge, the back foot parallel to the back edge of the mat, the front foot perpendicular to the front of the mat, the hips and arms open to the side.

 

Let’s move into Half Moon with reckless abandon, the instructor said.

 

Reckless abandon! I liked those words!

 

I flung myself forward onto my front leg, lifting up the back leg and keeping my arms spread. I hovered on one foot with one hand towards the mat and the other towards the sky. Then I stepped back into Warrior II and again without thinking back into Half Moon.

 

With reckless abandon, I repeated the sequence with the class three times. 
 
Moving without thinking is actually very freeing. My body did what it needed to do because my mind was free.

There and then on that Sunday morning I decided not to buy any more tickets on that rollercoaster ride. Instead, I would free my mind with reckless abandon and find my way, that way.