Dear Tired,
Thank you. You make me
more efficient; every movement matters
balanced because it’s too much trouble to fall
unable to spin stories
or be afraid
or dread
You make me light
because I don’t have the energy to be heavy
You make me breathe
because that will move my muscles & bones
once I can fight, struggle, force no longer.
Woke up with fatigued legs & altered plans in light of that. Took one early hot class rather than two & took it easy.
How does one take a class easy? First, leave off some of the “vinyasas” (colloquialism for half suns frequently done between poses or sets of poses). (Though I tend to leave some of those out anyway in faster-paced classes — I don’t care for any overly quick transitions into backbends, including/especially Up Dog. It’s bad for my back & bad for a lot of other people’s too, reading bodies & expressions.) Second, don’t go as deep into poses, especially bent knee standing poses when the legs are tired! Three, rest as needed in child’s pose or down dog or other pose appropriate to what’s going on.
Why take a class easy? (As opposed to taking a day off.) Well, for one thing, sometimes when you go to class when tired, it turns out to be a surprisingly excellent class anyway, in terms of what you learn, or how it makes you feel, or suddenly you get there & don’t feel tired anymore. And, right now anyway, it feels better for my body to do some movement rather than rest — it’s keeping things “lubed up” as it were. I suspect if I took a full day off at the moment, the next day I’d feel MORE sore rather than less as things locked up. Oh yeah, and there’s that whole stubborn/discipline thing that is useful to cultivate sometimes.
Felt mentally & emotionally fab afterwards — even went & got a haircut at 9 am!! Decided to embrace the fact that I have thick, wavy, uber-voluminous Big Hair & got bodacious amounts of long layers. Thankfully, the stick straight fashion phase seems quite over & Beloved Husband is a child of the 80′s & deeply looooves Big Hair. 
For a long time I was absolutely unconcerned with doing the right thing. Actually I was frequently antagonistic to it & sought its antithesis. Pretty much just operated driven by adolescence, anger, ambition, achievement, other things that begin with A (as in Type A) & tend to end in drama.
Along the way this changed & I started to want to do the right thing by myself & those I cared about.
Somehow, I really seriously totally had it in my head that the transition to wanting to good would make actually doing what’s best quite straightforward. I mean, really, I hadn’t had any desire or intention to do so before, therefore just aiming for it would be enough, correct?
Yeah, I wish. 
It was actually quite a surprise to me that just wanting to make healthy choices doesn’t mean that it’s easy to figure out what the best course of action is. Damn it! Am I the only one miffed by this?
I say this because after some exciting days this week, today I’m tired & needed some personal time so I gave my ticket to the David Swenson workshop to a friend, called my mom to talk for an hour & a half, emailed some other friends I’ve neglected & am now settling in to do a home practice to Ana’s Shoulders/Hip/Neck MP3.
Was this the right thing to do?
Dunno. Maybe. I love David & wanted to do the assisting workshop because he has some of the best assists in the business & it’d be good to relearn them. I could use the skillz. But I’ve got a huge day tomorrow where I don’t have the luxury of choosing a different course. And I think my friend will really love the workshop also & maybe this will help her see that I think she has it in her to teach in a few years when she’s ready. (Hidden agenda: not so hidden anymore. And I’ve neglected talking with friends & family so need to do some relationship yoga STAT. And I will practice today, just at home rather than out & about.
Right thing to do? No clue. But at least still trying.
PS!! Almost forgot… reason for big day tomorrow is that my class at Back Bay is starting. Will now have the 10 am Monday time slot of my own!! And also will do teachers practice at 3, then assist Peter at the 5:40 Forrest!!! So, big mandatory fun.
Not every day is Christmas.
Physically & emotionally tired today & wanted to practice in a way that helped rather than hurt (trust me, this is a relatively new thing for me. : ) Managed to:
1. Adapt – shortened the practice (in my case, 2 hrs rather than 3 + but I’m a bit of a freak : ) & did favorite sequences.
2. Modify – practiced all those lovely variations that make things more accessible. Left the “showing off for grandma” circus poses for another day. Well, except for Astavakra (Eight Curves/Crippled Sage) arm balance cuz that one just makes me happy. : )
3. Focus on form – on tired days, my technique can actually improve because I simply don’t have the energy to fight the pose & thrash around.
Even if every pose today could have been done “better” by a motivated platypus, I showed up. That’s enough.