I held back a bit more in class. I eased off on anything that made my knee feel funny. This meant doing less in Awkward, not crossing the left leg in Eagle, and skipping Triangle and Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee. Taking it a bit easy helped; I felt much better after class and have felt even better since. Right now, I feel about where I was before I re-tweaked the knee.
The day 234 meditation again addresses fascia and connective tissue. The point is that asana is not just muscular effort. Instead, as we develop, we can learn to spread our attention throughout the fascia, so that we are not just focusing on some isolated area. Rather, the goal is to become aware of all the connective tissue at once.
Gates quotes Iyengar: "Where does the body end and the mind begin? Where does the mind end and the spirit begin? They cannot be divided..." The fascia connect all parts of the body. And if yoga is the union of mind and body, it makes sense that awareness through the fascia would help develop this union. So far, so good.
Here's the problem? How do we become aware of the fascia in the first place. I never even knew I had plantar fascia until it started hurting so badly. I know how to move a finger, or move some bones, or how to flex some muscles by bringing my attention to them. But I simply don't know what I'm looking for when I'm supposed to feel this kind of connective tissue. Thus, aside from doing asana practice as best I can, I really don't have any clear idea how to bring my awareness to the connective web Gates talks about. I don't doubt it's important, but right now I feel its sort of like Gates is trying to describe the colors of a sunset to a blind man.
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