Week Five Funk

Today is the first day of Week 6 but I have yet to post a blog entry for Week 5 partially because it was a less than stellar week for me and partially because my weekend was consumed by studying the spine strengthening series . . so here goes . . . all in all I had a rough week. I fell behind in postures and had to scramble to learn Tree and Toe the same day I delivered them which ended up being a bit of a debacle. I got the demonstrators in and out of the posture and hit some of the actual dialogue but overall I was dissatisfied with my performance. My homework from the previous posture clinic had been to go "over the top" . . to "get out of my comfort zone" and, specifically to add some body movements to the words in Tree Pose and Toe Stand, one that resembled Elvis's hip gyrating dance moves. Now, I'm generally an outgoing person when I am confident and comfortable and amongst friends but when I'm in a new group of strangers I tend to be less so. The very thought of shoving my hips forward obnoxiously while delivering the dialogue was enough to catapult me into my shell for good here at training . . of course, I could also have used it as an opportunity to bring me out of that shell and take it for what it was, a silly assignment from posture clinic that, at the end of the day, no one would remember anyway. Had I been confident in the posture's dialogue I probably wouldn't have minded embellishing my delivery with an over the top hip pulsating move but feeling the way I was I was not into it. Anyway, that was that but it was the "highlight" of a week in which I was feeling over it all already. I was missing Rory . . a lot . . along with my family, my apartment and New York in general. I also have a lot of other things on my mind, like starting the PhD program in a new place in the fall and worrying about my husband finding employment in Colorado. The yoga has actually been my saving grace throughout this whole experience. It has been the one constant in a situation in which we never know what our schedule entails or what's coming next . . Posture clinic or lecture? Who will teach class? Will there be a movie until 2:30 a.m.? How hot will the room be? With all of these unknowns it is nice to have the 26 and 2 to rely on (26 postures, 2 breathing exercises) as stable factors. However, in my Week Five Funk, I grew to resent even the yoga. I found it hard to push myself in Half Moon which usually provides me with the energy and motivation for the remainder of class. All of this is normal, of course, and I'm neither surprised nor upset with myself for being human and feeling less than exuberant about the yoga and about dialogue delivery. This week I am going to work on letting go of my perfectionism a bit and aiming to do the best I can within the time frame I have. That is all I can ask of myself. So with my Week Five Funk behind me I begin Week 6 this morning . . .with a smile;)