I started a couple challenges.

One is a 30 day poetry challenge with the Escapery. Myself and other writers get a prompt a day to spark some inspiration for a raw, unedited, unfiltered poem. Ooh! My favorite kind to write! I don’t know why or how, but a couple years ago, I started this thing where I was like, “hey I’m just going to do some creative writing every day and post the uncut version.” And it really opened up this new fascination with poetry for me. Though I studied literature in college, I just feel like I have no clue what good poetry is or if I’m doing it. But like most things, I figured, “oh what the heck, it’s kinda fun.” After a while, I felt like the conceit was getting stale and I felt too much pressure to produce something every day, so I stopped. This challenge has been a refreshing welcome back so far. The prompts help me to not overly think about what to write about and do what I think I do well, which is to just roll with it. Like I tend to write a lot about nature, music, and energy and the prompts are things like writing about who sees you when you get the invisible award (yesterday) or describing a table and a feast. I mean, really stuff I’m not gravitating towards usually but something about it helps me to tap into other topics that I wouldn’t know how to enter if not for having that email prompt in front of me. So, I hope folks enjoy that. There’ll probably still be a lot of poems created using what I usually go to, but perhaps it’ll be interesting to see how it evolves.

I signed up for a screenwriting challenge the other day too but so far have been stumped on this exercise about voice on the FIRST DAY!! There’s this exercise which I think is meant to show you the points in your own life where you were pointed down the path to being the person and character you are now. All to show you about character and story. I find it extremely difficult to analyze myself in this way however. I’m like, well “who am I really?” Because the guy who does the challenge is using this example of A list talent who know exactly who they are and what roles they play. I don’t think I know quite what stories I write. I guess they are kind of ethereal comedies that have a mysterious/dark tinge? Would that be accurate?! Gah, no clue. Maybe that’s more wishful thinking and I’m just a goofball or really procedural. Not that those would be bad things either… anyway, more to come on that front. I think it’s also the reason I can’t decide on which type of story to tell. I was thinking maybe something about yoga or healing with a female protagonist because I haven’t seen a lot of those stories and I enjoy those spaces. I always think it’s a good idea to REALLY love the space or world you are writing about for long form projects since you’re going to spend a lot of time thinking about those places and people. And I figured, well I already spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff anyway so two birds, really. We’ll see how it all pans out.

And then the other areas I’ve been trying to focus in on is yoga and internal energy. I’ve had sporadic practices lately compared to my past and do I’m trying to hunker down. I was looking at things that distract me and one was social media. I spent way too much time there and then with the whole Facebook data breach, I’m like, “you know maybe this is a time to get creative on how I’m using these tools, etc. etc.” So I deleted the app for now. Didn’t deactivate but figured I’d just see what comes up from not being on it and curating down who I follow and am influenced by on other spaces. I’m trying to blog more (as you can see) and trying to not worry about who reads it, what they think about it, if it’s self-indulgent (isn’t everything?!), etc.

I’ve said this before and honestly I don’t know why I have had (have?) a hang up with it but I have been trying to find ways to talk about my yoga and internal energy practices for a while now and am like stopping myself. Why? No clue except that I feel like the best way to talk about it is by describing my own personal experience and progress. I think I figured “oh well if I’m writing a blog about this then I gotta be an expert or write from a place of this high leveled experience.” And then it’s like well how high do you want to go since progression is endless? So obviously that didn’t work.

I guess my view was that no one would want to read the perspective of this girl who doesn’t know Mandarin or Sanskrit. I’m not even Chinese or Indian. So like talk about cultural appropriation, right? But then I really enjoy and spend like SO MUCH (too much?) of my day thinking of all this stuff that the best I can come up with is maybe that there’s a way to honor and practice something that values and respects where something comes from and maybe by practicing more I’ll figure out more stuff??

Anyway, this post is getting long and trying to cover way too much already. Point is, I decided to get over it and start writing about it.

At one point in time, I made the most significant progress in my internal energy practice by committing to a short practice that I did every day and then writing exactly what I experienced whether it was emotions, physical, whatever. I wrote about it all because that’s the only way I could see over time what was changing and where I could focus. That worked, so I figured I’d do that again.

I’m just really trying to get to a point in yoga where I’m not constantly thinking about non-yoga stuff as I’m practicing. I know, BIG GOALS! Maybe it’s not the point of yoga, but I don’t care. That’s where I’m at. It’s so hard too. Even with all this other stuff to think about like how to position my body or if I’m breathing right or enough or too fast and where I’m supposed to be fixing my gaze. I can’t stop (yet!). It’s like an addiction. Anyway, goal #1 in yoga these days. That and just trying to stay consistent.

My internal energy practice is a whole mother animal. Because I’ve been spotty with practicing consistently my experience is just not what it was at certain high points. It’s like if I was this skateboarder that could do a ton of tricks and then didn’t do it for a while so can barely ollie. Ugh. So I mean ultimate goal? Feel it all, a lot!! But more immediate goal is to “get back to where I was”, which I’ll know when I feel. Actually I came up with a way to have fun with it. I’m going to see how long it takes me. I *kinda* predict a month just given how stuff like this has gone in the past, but I know what’s going to happen. I’m going to get in the flow of practicing and then have some big experience in a couple days.

So, anyway, if anyone’s curious I’m doing Ashtanga for the yoga practice. I’m at bhuja pidasana. Look at me go! I had to look up how to spell that, but I think it’s a lot better than saying “the one where you wrap your legs around your arms”. I’m so sore. I can barely walk. But other than looking forward to seeing what changes. I was surprised to see that I could more or less eek my way through the postures, except for the deep twists here and there (which have been hard for me since being introduced o them). You know one cool thing is some postures that I was like “borrrrrring who cares?” and just did because they were in between the other stuff I liked doing and you know ws generally positive like “oh I’m sure they are good for you” in the way that asparagus is good for you. Anyway! A couple of these postures, I feel like I’m making progress on and you get all those little linkage points too like, “oh duh this one posture totally helps me do this other thing that I need to do in order to go deeper”. So little things like that are my jam.

On the internal side, I’ve committed to doing a mini practice a day at least. Gotta feel something. So lately, I’m doing what I call “2*7”. It’s 2 minutes of 7 different exercises structured like a pyramid. I didn’t make it, my teacher did for some other dude on this group on Facebook I used to frequent when I was on fb. Anyway, it’s:

• Quiet standing
• Constant bear
• Shiko A
• Shiko B
• Shiko A
• Constant Bear
• Quiet standing

If you’re actually interested in background on all this, I’d recommend Aiki Singularity. It’s very good and if you are consistent, will be effective.

Anyway, after a couple of years of practicing using this approach, I feel a charge somewhere the instant I begin. Doesn’t matter if I practice every day or have taken a break for a month. It’s there. But it’s such a let down that I’m not feeling what I was! Hence my immediate goal. But that’s ok, the process is fun too. It’s like when you’re on a road trip and come across this really bad ass mountain or something beautiful and you go, “no way! This is a thing apparently!” When you’ve been there before it’s still cool like, “hey! It’s that mountain again! Look at you go!”

So when I get to the second Constant Bear, that’s usually when I feel something big. I guess because you’re just more relaxed and focused by then so you can feel more. Don’t know. Today was interesting. Not because I felt a lot more. It was actually kinda tough because I decided to visit my husband at work since he claimed he’d found a really good chai and my chai that I got sucked (too sweet). Anyway, turns out it was a good chai and his new work is in a really cute part of town I wanted to explore. I had plans with myself to practice though so he suggested a nearby park. I really enjoy practicing outside but it can get easy to get distracted (see yoga goals). So I did my thing in a quietish spot and decided the spot itself could work. So noted for the future.

But whether I try something a little different than my norm, I have more tension and can’t feel as much. I just get worried about who’s watching (no one) and what they think (they are not thinking about me) and if anyone is behind me (I don’t know why I get paranoid about that). So I felt more or less The Usual during practice then I was like, no wait I want to try some other stuff since I have a bunch of time.

I then did this santi (see xingyi and Aiki book referenced) drill and didn’t get much BUT THEN I remembered how my teacher posted about snake (one of the xingyi animals) and was feeling like “hey I gotta try something with more movement, more dynamics”. So I did snake for a couple lines up and down, which was actually another good challenge for me to do while not worrying about passersby. And towards the end I was like, well that was dumb, I feel stupid, probably looked stupid, my teacher would laugh at how shittily I did this, like bad karate, but I went into quiet standing anyway and BLAM! Just like a wash of energy up the front side of my body but particularly in my torso and strangely my neck and chin. So just as mentioned in my goals before. But you really can’t get too excited about what happens because it’s always different and sometimes it builds and sometimes it doesn’t it just does it’s own thing.

All good. Gah, if anyone read this far, I’m like going to give you a cookie or something because I just feel like I had to get all that out. But if not that’s all right too. Just a little note for my future self.