Final reflections of 2008

The clock reads 12:51AM and I cannot sleep. My alarm is set for 5AM. No doubt a nap will be in order tomorrow afternoon before the New Year's Eve festivities begin.

I've been wanting to post this for awhile, but for some reason have been putting it off. For the greater part of my life, I've had really bad posture due to a weak core. The style of yoga I had gotten into is Ashtanga, which has a reputation for being very hard on the rotator cuffs due to the number of vinyasas in each practice. As I began to build strength, my front chest and shoulder muscles bulked up while my back muscles were sadly neglected, exascerbating my ape-woman posture. This was pointed out to me by a watchful instructor, and I began to really work on heart-openers and backbends. Enter the introduction of second series of Ashtanga, and I was really able to open up. My posture improved, and all was right with my yoga practice again. However, as my second series practice got longer, I've been feeling fatigued in my front shoulder muscles, and I noticed my shoulders drooping forward ever so slightly when I'm resting in bed. I was baffled.

Well, last week I got my answer. Matthew D., the Michigan (more accurately, Midwest) Ashtanga guru I've been practicing under is an absolutely fantastic instructor. After watching me practice a measly 2 times, he made an observation that no one has ever caught before. Though my shoulders were very open and my posture good in the held postures, my shoulders were still hunching - badly, I might add - in transitionary postures (tittibasana and bakasana - for those who are curious). Today, when I was practicing, I got into those transition postures again. Suddendly, I hear him shout across the room to me, "lift those shoulders and straighten that spine!!" I couldn't. I completely lacked the muscles to do so. It was sobering to realize that all this time I thought I was building upper back muscles, I've been fooling myself by overcompensating with being super open in the chest. Matthew later pointed out to me, the drooping shoulders that came back to haunt me was likely produced by fatigue when I increased the number of postures I practiced due to second series.

Underlying problems show themselves during mindless transitions. In the case of yoga, you could not detect my hunched shoulder problem in the "regular postures" - they only appeared during mindless transitions. Likewise in my life, my character flaws and reactions that show up in transitory periods are not aberrant behavior - rather, they are symptoms of hidden underlying issues. I truly believed that I had matured and worked through some character flaws that I had. However, those flaws still show up from time to time: when I am under a lot of stress from school, when I lack sleep, when I am on vacation stuck in a hotel room with my entire family. I wrote those behaviors off thinking they were brought up by these special circumstances. No. These unregulated behaviors are actually indicative of my true state.

So what now? I have yet to make a list of New Year's Resolutions yet (surprising, since it's pretty much my favorite thing to do every year). But one thing for sure I will do change from here on out: I will pay attention to my behaviors during transitory periods rather than excusing them away.