The Emerald City

So how many lifetimes does it take us to learn the lesson of boddicitta? To become enlightened like the Buddha and to be relieved from the endless cycle of death and rebirth, to be released from samsara? None can say. It only took Dorothy one lifetime to realize that all she had to do was to click the heels of her ruby red slippers and she would be granted her greatest wish - to go back to Kansas. That being her greatest wish can be the subject of a different debate. But how many times, how many self-inflicted injuries will it take me before I begin to listen to and trust my body? None can say? No, I think I have to start learning this lesson here and now.
Before I came to yoga I ran. I ran marathons and half marathons. I ran thousands and thousands of miles, not particularly fast, but fast enough that I would have qualified for the Boston Marathon in my next marathon - that being my goal - my dream. Running long distance was more than just exercise for me. It was meditation. I got in the zone. I got my body in alignment, arms and legs pumping in rhythm and my neck loose so that my mom said she could always see my ponytail bobbing distinctively down the road.
I had my share of aches and pains, but nothing major; shin splints were corrected by orthotics. An IT band injury was fixed by a little rest and some stretching and ice. Then one day I noticed a bump on my left tibia. I was slightly painful, but not that bad. Not as bad as you would think a stress fracture would feel. I worked in a physical therapy clinic at the time and I asked one of the therapists what the bump could be and they said they didn't know but that I should definitely have it x-rayed. I made an appointment, but then canceled it because I convinced myself that it went away (oh my goodness, ever heard of denial?). I ran a half-marathon in April of 2004 and after that it hurt everytime I tried to run. That deep bony ache that finally I listened to that told me something was most definitely wrong. They diagnosed a non-union stress fracture on x-ray, which is somewhat uncommon, and recommended that I see a surgeon who said that the only way to really fix it was to insert a metal rod into my tibia after drilling out the bone marrow. After that I would be able to return to running. So I agreed. I wanted to get to the Emerald City of Boston even if it meant I had to submit my body to a very painful medical process.
In the meantime I found yoga. I friend dragged me to an advanced vinyasa class at a new studio in our neighborhood. I'm sure I looked a fool, but it didn't matter. At the time I wasn't even allowed to walk for exercise. I was allowed to swim, but there were always college kids making out in the lanes. I could bike, but I would break down and cry whenever I was on the path that had been the training grounds for those marathons. So... yoga. I never would have thought in a million years. And I approached it like a runner. Pushing through the hard parts like going uphill. Straining when my body was tired. After I had the surgery it quickly became apparent that running was not the same - and if it wasn't going to be the same, I didn't want to do it anymore and by that time I loved yoga.
But maybe I loved it for the wrong reasons. I loved it because someday I wanted to be able to do the splits, or do handstand in the middle of the room, or put both feet behind my head. Always a goal, always a hardness, always pushing. Until my aunt died and I pushed way, way, way too hard to get through Primary Series in Mysore class one day. The teacher kept telling me not to push it, that I would only hurt myself, but I wouldn't listen. I had to kill that witch and take her broom to the wizard. The next day I woke up and I couldn't sit up. I had to roll over and find a way to get out of bed. It was the day of the funeral. Everything hurt. After the funeral and wake I went to a restorative class, and it was almost as if the teacher had told me to put on my ruby slippers and click my heels three times and I would be home.
The next morning I woke up feeling considerably better. I realized that I had been exacerbating a hamstring attachment injury for a year because I refused to rest or really even back off - always trying to go further - that's how you go 26.2. So when a friend came over to practice Primary Series, I did yin and felt wonderful and didn't wish for a second that I was sweating and jumping back and through. And today I woke up feeling even better and knowing that I have to heal this hamstring attachment as well, not just work through it, but really heal it.
My teacher recently told me that she can still see a hardness in my practice; pushing through poses that she doesn't like. I have been trying to overcome that for at least a year, maybe longer. I feel like sometimes you have to push or pull a little. But after that Monday class, I realize that I was still running through my practice and a lot of the poses are uphill! Now I must be ready to listen, to soften, to stop running.
And I do get to go to Boston - The Emerald City - to see one of my favorite yoga instructors, Bhavani Maki, whom I met while on vacation in Hawaii. Who could have known?
Namaste