Yoga for the Hopeless

Even Maya would do better than me

I show up for the class knowing full well of my limitations: inflexible, poor balance, core muscles gone to uselessness, arm mobility issues, inability to follow rapid fire directions and inability to remember Sanskrit names. I do have a great cardiac system and strength in my arms and especially legs but not much of that helps. This is a class specifically for breast cancer survivors as we have several issues in common. I assumed it would be taught at a beginner level. Indeed, my first instructor, Momma Sunflower, focused on  gentle moves and restorative poses. I learned to relax, hard for tense me. Unfortunately her cancer came back (and she is not doing well at all: kidney failure due to treatment side effects. She has a child younger than Maya!). She was replaced by someone who never had cancer and seemed to have the attitude that if she could do it, we could too (young and limber as she was). Well I couldn't repeat anything she did and felt bad about myself and frustrated so I quit.

I heard that the new instructor was a cancer survivor so perhaps she would be a bit more gentle. No. Do this and then this and then this in rapid fire. I couldn't see what she was doing due to hair in my eyes, darkness, large neighbor in my way and continued instructions to keep our eyes closed. (doing balance exercises is hard enough with my eyes open; try them with eyes closed). My gut feeling was to run out of class crying (this is my gut feeling too often) but in the words of Hushpuppy: Don't be a pussy!. I stuck it out hoping the hour would pass quickly and that we could get to the bit of restorative pose at the end (can't remember the name of that for the life of me..survasasama?).Looked it later: shavasana i.e. Corpse pose It didn't help that as yesterday had the best hope for good weather for the week, I went on a long run so I was exhausted coming in. I did feel good afterwards so yay for that.

I spoke to her after class. She is very open to feedback and a nice lady. She had had cancer many years a go (and she is quite a bit younger than me) so she was young at the time. It destroyed her hopes of having a family. In those days, cancer patients were quite isolated, no support groups, on line forums, etc so she felt quite alone.  Yoga healed her she fervently believes. She will try to have us do things more slowly. And maybe I can get better.

I went home to find Naomi and Maya. I told Naomi about some of the impossible positions we were expected to obtain. She did them easily. As said many times before, my genetic contributions to my children were minimal. Josh does have my inflexibility though.