Renegade Yogi

Fifth (and final?) day of yoga retreat

Please excuse me for not writing about this last night. Life intervened.

I’m going to close out this retreat with a little review of each practice.

Jala neti is amazing. I love it. I can’t believe I have lived without it for so long. Two weeks ago I was completely congested and could hardly breathe through my nose. Now, I feel like my nose is completely clear. It used to take about ten minutes to get all of the water through my nose. Now it takes a couple of minutes to pour a whole neti pot. Once a day is plenty.

Pranayama went well, though the effects don’t feel as strong anymore. Either I’m getting used to them or they have begun to permeate into the rest of my life. I either have to practice for more time each day or practice more advanced exercises. Or accept that I’m used to the feeling. It’s still quite pleasant. I was thinking the other day that it would be very useful to people just to become a little acquainted with it. So many people are looking for peace in their lives. Why not just sit quietly and breathe? Your heart rate goes down. Your blood pressure goes down. Your muscles relax. Your mind quiets down. So helpful, especially for the chronically stressed (like our whole society).

Meditation. Well, it certainly wasn’t a pleasant experience while I was doing it. But I have gained a lot. I was thinking that I need to start just concentrating again. I’m just not ready for mindfulness/insight meditation. Just not ready. I need to strengthen my ability to concentrate first. I thought I was ready, but I’m not.

Asana practice was a little slow on the last day. I was sore and tired. I did my sun salutes and the standing postures. Everything was deep and slow. Then I went straight to svasana. I hadn’t had a good, long svasana the whole week, since I was timing everything. It inevitably was cut short. So I had a good twenty minute svasana. Well, i say good, but unfortunately I hadn’t built up enough heat in my body and my room was cold. But other than a few shivers, it was a good svasana.

What have I learned? I think two days a week would be ideal for me right now. I thought I could sustain it every day, but I don’t think so now. That’s not to say that I couldn’t get used to it. I believe three or four weeks of daily practice would accustom my body to it. But twice a week is good enough to maintain or deepen my flexibility between classes and give me a chance to work on things I wouldn’t have a chance to in class.

So, that’s the end of the retreat. What do you think? How was your retreat?

But you know, it’s not the end. Tomorrow, I have class, and today, there is an international fundraiser going on to stop human trafficking. It’s called Yoga Stops Traffick. I’m going to be participating this morning. There’s a place in the park under a huge old oak tree, where we will gather to do sun salutations. I hope my tired muscles will pull off a few good ones. You should find one in your area and show your support!