yoga and winter

Every week my yoga teacher says, "It's yoga practice, not yoga perfect."And every week the yoga is different. Today my muscles were sore. And I had to crawl out of Shavasana  carefully because of the chronic low back pain that I get from driving too much, and maybe because it was only my second class since being sick with that bad winter cold for almost two weeks ... in any case, practice is the point. Practice makes practice better, or different, or familiar. I practice writing, I practice teaching, I practice patience, I practice becoming the person I want to be. Day in and day out. Some days I don't resemble that person I really want to be at all. And that's how it goes. Some days I finish eating the allotted calories for the day, and then go back later for another snack. Oh well. Try again tomorrow. Some days I think I should do yoga at home, on my own, and never quite get around to it. Well, sometimes the thought is the first step even if the second step takes a while to hit the ground. And so I keep practicing. Here's another way to think about it: Yoga and Willpower.

So this weekend I'll make another list of things I want to "accomplish" next week. Like going to yoga twice and doing it once at home. And taking the dog for at least one extra long walk, especially since the weather's been so mild. And maybe I'll even pull out that guitar, my other resolution for the new year, to start practicing music. My yoga teacher also talked about "emptiness" today, in a way I've heard it discussed in Tibetan Buddhism. Emptiness is not nothing, it is infinite potential. It is the space in which anything is possible, potential, there are no constraints. The trick is to aim toward the potential instead of staying or getting caught in limitation, or limited thinking. Emptiness. Don't empty your mind. Open it.