Gratitude: Bridges, Arm Waving and Stuff

me and bridges and stuff

Another week has gone by with my poor little blog being all neglected, mainly because the energy I started out with on Monday morphed into spending Saturday morning lying in bed, propped up against my pillows feeling so exhausted that reading was difficult.

It's been tempting during the last month or so to get really frustrated with my body and feel that it has been failing me, defaulting back into that strange mindset where I see my body as not only totally separate from myself but clearly out to get me, with illness being it's principle weapon. Yes, I know that's clearly slightly barking and horribly unhealthy, and I much prefer living without this weird thought pattern. So I'm very grateful that when I've had the occasional moment of thinking 'bloody useless body, it's doing this just to make my life difficult' I've been able to take a step away from the self-loathing and realise that everyone gets sick sometimes, it's not a moral failing and that I'm doing the best I can, and that's OK.

I'm grateful for Havi's blog, about destuckification and being a harbour seal, pretty much every time I read it. This week she wrote about bridges, and kaboom! Instant clarity dose. Immediately I thought of Amsterdam, it's hundreds of bicycle festooned bridges and how much I enjoyed wandering around it and discovering the next street, the next wall plaque, the next museum, the next café. Could I have done that if I was trying to cross all the bridges at once, and then berating myself for being too lazy when I failed at doing something that that was impossible?

No, and I wouldn't have enjoyed my trip either. But that's what I've been trying to do, thinking that I need to be crossing every bridge possible, right now. Some things are going to have to go, especially the feeling that I have to hurry through everything I'm doing and that if I'm doing something I enjoy that's clearly a selfish indulgence and obviously I should be doing something else instead. (Personally I blame tedious homework for this attitude!)

Gratitude number three is that waving my arms around is helping me rejig my thought patterns. I was slightly cynical when I first read about Shiva Nata, particularly after some of my not-very-enlightening yogic experiences. But this is tagged as delivering hot buttered epiphanies and at this rate I'll have to buy a new butter knife. This deserves a whole post to itself, preferably written when I'm more or less sure than my brain is fully functional.

And my last gratitude? Laughter. Despite feeling a bit bleugh I've laughed a lot, enough to snort piggishly and spit drink on myself. I've just spent about five minutes working out how to write this last sentence because it makes a large part of me want to vomit, so I'll just have to get it out in a rush and then hope I don't besmirch my bedspread: to me, this is how I would define being blessed.

There! And know I've realised that even though this post is probably far too long, I have one more thing I'm grateful for: all of you who come here and read and leave me wonderful comments. I've appreciated your support so much recently. Thank you!

Sucking on Englightenment

I'm noticeably lacking in the yoga-photo department, so you'll have to live with the ribbon ladies

This is where I could be super obnoxious and be all 'I've been doing yoga since I was three years old, so take my enlightenment and suck on it, because clearly you are never ever going to catch up with me'. Luckily for both of us that would not be true, and I like to think that if I did write something like that, you all would smack me upside the head.

But there might be illumination. Just perhaps not the kind that you would think of first. And if there's not that then there's a story of sorts.

So, yoga take one:

When I was maybe about three or four my mum starting practising yoga, and obviously I had to join in. I like to think that I did this in an adorable, mother-daughter bonding type way, not in a making my mum wish she kept taking the pill type way.

It is fun, slightly mysterious and I got to spend time with my mummy, which to my three year old self equals sweet.

Yoga take two:

I start accompanying my mum to classes at a local yoga loft. Yoga is not fun, it is Very Serious. Also, pain equals good and you are meant to force yourself into a position, ignoring your body's warning screams of anguish. It is also super competitive: I still remember the outrage and extreme vexation of my self-created rivals in the class when I could do the lotus position and they couldn't. Being able to do more advanced poses made you superior, and how dare this whippersnapper come along and disrupt the hierarchy of who-can-do-what, especially when said whippersnapper isn't even that great at some of the basic poses.

As time went by, the levels of superiority and oddness just seemed to get more, well, odd. The superiority wasn't limited to whether or not you could become a human pretzel, it was all about the self-righteous vegetarianism too. It irritated me, and I was vegetarian at the time, so I'm surprised that no-one got bopped on the nose by an infuriated meat eater.

There was also the strange equation between neglecting your appearance, or flouting norms, and spirituality. I don't care whether or not you shave your armpits, but please stop waving them in my face and banging on about it. And no, I don't think not shaving them has any relation to how spiritual you are. Similarly, I also fail to see the link between tramp-like laxity with personal hygiene and spiritual elevation.

A new male teacher wore shorts that were so brief the mouse was truly out of the house when he demonstrated certain poses to his all female class. There were complaints, the owner spoke to him, he refused to wear anything more covering, and continued teaching. Then the owner started telling us about how you didn't need food and could live on light. It will probably not surprise you that this is the point I stopped going to classes and retreated with horror from anything yoga related.

Yoga take 3:

I'm now in China. I often go to the gym at lunch time, and whilst I work out watch the yoga classes taking place. They look like they'd be a good way to relax between my morning and afternoon classes, and although it takes me a few weeks to pluck up the courage, eventually I do.

I can't understand what the teachers or my classmates are saying, and they can't understand me, but I watch, and if I'm getting tangled up the wrong way or need an adjustment, the teacher will come and help me, without making me feel like I'm in danger of dislocating anything vital.

Beginners come clad in tight jeans and t-shirts with unintelligible English slogans and laugh with their friends because they can't do anything. Occasionally only one or two people can glide into postures that I'm sure are defying laws of physics, and possibly anatomy. Everyone else watches, tries to imitate the early steps, and then falls over or goes 'ouch', and we give each other 'omg, we must be crazy to be even trying this' looks.

In one class, the first ten minutes after the meditation is spent doing moving your head from side to side. My friends who are more into lifting weights don't understand how that can even be exercise. It is one of the most relaxing things I've ever done, and afterwards my back muscles ache in a good way.

The classes can be tough, but instead of holding one position for ages, we move fluidly through sets of different postures. And just when I thinking 'I'm done, is it not time for shavasana yet?' we repeat a set again, and I do it even though I think I'm spent, and somehow it still manages to be fun. But if you are spent and just want to sit it out, that's fine too.

Things in the class aren't perfect: sometimes you can hear the pop music from the work out area, or machines clanging, or weightlifting men grunting. Sometimes someone's phone goes off, or they have to leave before the end of class. But there was no hysteria, and neither did the God of Yoga smite us.

I cannot tell you how vexed I was when the gym replaced my favourite yoga teacher's class with some bizarre yoga-t'ai chi hybrid. Although at least I gave some passing entertainment as I flailed like someone suffering from a particularly uncoordinated case of St Vitus's Dance.

And now I've got the point where I think I'm supposed to draw a moral, but I'm assuming that you're more than capable of doing that yourselves. And besides, the drawing is always too easy, it's the living that's difficult...*

*Yes, I just realised I totally drew a moral there. Gah!

Feeling frazzled

The events of the last two days have left me undecided as to whether I’m attracting disaster or good luck. I had arranged to have Sunday lunch with two of my junior students, pictured above with a traditional Chinese toffee fruit stick thing – hmmm, really should find out the real name for them! They had very generously bought me one, they’re quite peculiar, the outside of it is hard and very very sweet, whilst the inside is a tart and slightly mushy fruit. Quite an interesting combination, but I think sampling it once will be enough for me.

We went to Vivian’s (the shorter girl) apartment, which is very close to the school, in a housing estate where many of the teachers at my school live. Her parents are both high school politics teachers, so their apartment is a good idea of what the living conditions of the aspirational middle classes are here.

the living area of their apartment; the Chinese knot (big red thing) is a symbol of good luck

Vivian’s father had left a selection of wonderful looking dishes, and some noodles to boil. We spent some time boiling the noodles and making fresh orange juice: let’s just say I don’t think I could cope with the stress of being a home economics teacher. The dishes left by Vivian’s father were cold but were ones normally eaten hot, so I assumed that we would reheat them in the microwave, but this was didn’t happen. I found this very surprising, as most Chinese food is served hot, with the only exceptions being some appetizers and ice cream. Even in hot weather it is difficult to find cold drinks or ice.

please don't burn the kitchen down girls!

Unfortunately, being served cold rendered most of the food almost indelibly disgusting. Luckily I had my noodles with egg and tomato to keep me going, as although I did my best to try and eat as much as possible of the cold plates, I didn’t do so well. I noticed her friend picked at the cold food too. I’m now quite worried that I’ve offended her.

dishes best served hot

Later on that afternoon I was due to meet up with my friend Xin, who speaks perfect English after spending five years studying in the UK. I was really looking forward to this, as we’d been meaning to meet up for months but one of us was always ill, busy or away. We’d decided to go and visit Shijiazhuang’s café and Xin had persuaded her mother to lend her her car for the occasion.

noodles with egg and tomatos, a traditional and very popular Chinese dish

In the end, we didn’t get as far as the end of the road I live on. We were sitting at a red light when we got rear ended. Someone had driven into the car behind us, somehow not seeing the red light or the queue of traffic! Thankfully Xin’s mother drives a sturdy Audi, so their car was barely damaged. The man who had caused the accident was driving a cheap Chinese car, which was written off, the front crumpled like a used napkin. Luckily, nobody was injured, but I had to spend the next hour standing around until the police came and ascertained who was to blame.

When they arrived, some of them were far more interested in me than the minor car accident! They were all very pleasant and efficient, and told the possibly blind afternoon wrecker that the accident was entirely his fault and that he was a very stupid man.

My issues didn’t end here, as I for some reason that evening I found I couldn’t call my family using Skype. This resulted in a stressful search for the nearest internet café, until a very kind shopkeeper took pity on me, and got two equally kind teenage boys to escort me there – they even accompanied me up the five flights of stairs! It never ceases to amaze me how helpful Chinese people are to me.

Then today three out of my four classes were unusually badly behaved: if I hadn’t had a relaxing yoga class at lunch time to refresh me I think I might have lost it by my last class who were absolutely shocking. I even had one kid throwing a tissue at me. I think I’ll be speaking to their teacher tomorrow.

Nothing has really gone right, but it also hasn't been as bad as it could've been, so I'm trying to be thankful for that rather than getting stressed out. Note the word trying!

Why can't I stand on one leg?

I decided to try out the yoga class at the gym today, as I have become almost disturbingly stiff and inflexible. The class started off with a period of meditation, and after years of neglect, my meditation skills are back to those of a toddler with ADD. I could not keep my eyes closed, my thoughts raced at their usual hundred miles an hour and I ended up yelling to myself ‘Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!’ which obviously did not help. I felt like we’d been sitting there for half an hour, but it was only five minutes. At that point, I started getting pins and needles in one of my feet and getting cold, so I was the irritating person shuffling around and no doubt disturbing everyone else.

Luckily following the class was pretty easy, although I couldn’t understand a word the instructor said. He seemed very pleasant though, and came round and corrected me on a couple of postures. Not only is he very fit in several senses, but was wearing full length tracksuit bottoms and displayed no signs of imminent insanity. After attending yoga classes where one of the male instructors insisted on wearing shorts so brief that the mouse was repeatedly out of the house and the owner of the yoga loft became convinced that it was possible to live just on light, this was quite a relief.

It was a more dynamic form of yoga than Iyengar yoga, as you go directly from pose to pose, rather than stopping and starting, and there was a much greater emphasis on warming up the muscles. I preferred thisway of doing it, and also hope it means that I’m not walking like a cowboy tomorrow. Although it was rather odd not to have blocks or belts to help you in poses. It seems that I still cannot do poses on one leg without falling over repeatedly, which probably shows that my karma’s unbalanced or something, but at least I wasn’t the only one tottering about on one leg as if I’d had a few too many shots of baijiu beforehand. One of the things I like most about the class was despite the differences in ability levels, there was a very friendly atmosphere, unlike some of the competitive pretzeling I’ve encountered in British yoga classes.