"It's ok...It's the good pain."

The philosophy behind Ashtanga yoga is one that has intrigued, replsed, inspired, and confused Melina and I at various times leading up to and during this part of our travels. Physical adjustments are INTENSE to say the least. There's talk of surrender--to the guru, to the pain, gravity, to yourself...and there's also talk of pushing, pushing, using force and strength and not giving up. So, you have to really never give up...but ultimately, you just have to give up.

Over the past week it has been really difficult for both of us to reconcile what's been ingrained in us through our prior dance and yoga training--a certain anatomical intelligence and awareness, a focus on correct alignment and injury prevention, and a very deep understanding of what is good, what is safe, what is better, what is enough. In ashtanga we've been pushed farther than we ever thought we could go. The teacher comes up behind you while you're in a forward bend, puts a towel on your back, and basically lays himself over you. inhale, lengthen...exhale, go down, more, more, more...inhale, lengthen...exhale, go down, oh god, it hurts...
Breath really does help, and a sort of discarding of the "that's too much" attitude. At the same time, we want to maintain our bodies in fairly good shape, because they're not just for yoga--we're not strictly yogis, dedicating our bodies to this specific practice in order to attain a higher closeness to god. Rather, we're dancers, we're bikers, we're movers in many different ways. Melina has an injured hamstrng attachment and I've got injured hip flexors, and we're trying to keep these injuries in mind while not assigning limitations to ourselves because of them. Today, Ajay, our guru, had me in badokonasana (the butterfly stretch, soles of feet together). He pushed my knees down to the ground and laid on my back, slowly pushing me down, down, down. My hips are really tight, and I've been going through a LOT emotionally lately, so these really intense openings are intense in more ways than one. This certainly isn't the first time I've cried in a yoga class, but...
Today, while he was practically sitting on my back, I let it go and cried, cried, cried. He seemed to think this was a step in the right direction, and I agree. As I cried, I let everything go, not just emotionally--probably went deeper into the pose than I ever have.

Our bodies hurt, we're achy, but we're strong, and learning, and I guess we see more to ashtanga than we thought we would. Also, (I'm pretty sure I speak for both of us), we're hungry ALL THE TIME. The physical exertion just leaves us wanting to CONSUME. We eat oatmeal in the morning, and then fruit and a peanut butter sandwich after class. Now it's about 2:30 and...yes, I've just confirmed, we are both starving.
We're still figuring out what we're individually going to take from this, and I certainly am not going to establish a daily ashtanga practice when I get back...but I think there's something to this "surrender" thing.