I had forgotten how much I enjoy solo practice. I moved last week into a new room that finally has a space for me to roll out a mat and do a sun salutation without whacking any furniture. My first few practices here have been wonderful, under a skylight and with no pressure of comparisons. My energy is generally quieter and cooler. My body is calmer and listens better. I do feel like I have my best focus when I am alone - just as when I started going into my practice in earnest in 2012 with my little travel mat while on tour.
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Two days ago this came to me in practice:
Body: Your most treasured achievements will come not from desperation but from steadiness.
Then I sat down today with the delightful little yoga philosophy handbook by my current teacher Hamish Hendry, and this jumped out at me from his selection of his favourite Yoga Sutras - "Sthira sukham asanam" (Steady comfort posture - in postures as well as in being)
And more on being in the moment - after I told my friend J about my recent observation about not living in painful moments of the past, she added on a paraphrase from a Contact Improvisation workshop she had taken with Robert Anderson:
"You can't be *here* if you're trying to be over there!"
Increasingly I am convinced that practice is a way to receive accumulated human wisdom.
(Upanishads in 2000BC, Yoga Sutras in 100AD, up to the contemporary wisdom of our teachers and friends!)
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