For the second straight class, I've made it through without a water break. Today, I really felt the difference. Through the entire floor series, my head was clearer and I felt more alert than I typically do. I didn't slog through the transitions from pose to Savasana and back.
There's a downside that I noticed as well. Everything is much clearer, including some of the unpleasant sensations. So, for the first time in a while, I felt overwhelmed coming out of Camel. In Rabbit, the difficulty breathing was perhaps a bit more difficult. And the pain down the back of my legs during the final stretch was even more exquisite than usual.
On balance, I will say that I like it. My head aches slightly now, so I will have to watch for that. And I don't intend on becoming militant about it. In some ways, I think people can become just as attached to the "no water" idea as they do to the crutch of drinking. I'll bring my bottle in and drink if I feel like I need it. But I'm not drinking at the breaks anymore just because it's party time.
I love the opening paragraph of today's meditation. Gate's pairs the great myths with the plot of TV sitcoms and says that we find yoga in each. The analytic part of me wants to say that when we start finding something everywhere, that probably means that we are projecting it there. But in the case of yoga, is that such a bad thing? And does it minimize what we find? Yoga involves unity, balance, love, truth, generosity, temperance. There's a lot worse that we could do than that.
And then, Gates basically puts himself into the lyrics of a Lynyrd Skynyrd song. His writing is beautiful, but I've never much liked Skynyrd. In high school, a friend of mine brought over one of their albums and I disliked it enough that I put it up on my dartboard while he went to the bathroom, and we played who can hit "Freebird" first while he was out of the room.
I like the idea of becoming a simple man. There is a wonderful Flaubert story called Un Coeur Simple (A Simple Heart). It's about a servant woman who has a truly pure heart. She might be a simpleton and she might be a saint. It's hard to distinguish her simplicity from some form of divine inspiration. This image has much more appeal to me. And as a result, while I think simplicity is a noble goal, I don't think it makes one easy to understand.
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