Today is the day, I gotta do it, practice for the first time in this new environment, in this new shala.
I don’t know if any of you have ever felt this way but when you start to practice in a new shala, with a new teacher for me it feel like getting completely undressed in front of strangers, and honestly I am not so comfortable in my own skin yet, Sofia used to say that I am afraid of naked people and indeed is true, I am also afraid on my own naked body,(here it is another box ready to be tick: love your naked body).First practice in a new spot is basically like the first time you have sex, well not exactly as there’s no romance to share, there’s just a deep intimacy that go beyond the naked body, you are basically stripping off while you are floating (or at lest trying to do so) with the movements of your body.
I didn’t know Rolf at all and I was scared.What if wasn’t going to be gentle with me? What if he wasn’t going to understand my injury, my pain,what if was going to try to change the practice that took me so long to establish?What if I wasn’t going to be good enough?
It felt frightened from beginning to end,I was fighting to prove something that perhaps was unnecessary. My knee was painful, it started to be so since I got here,could have been the fear stored into my ligaments to remind me of my own presence? It was so painful that I was finding hard to bind and if you are a practitioner you must know how important is to show you can bind in marichyasana, apparently that is supposed to be the key of your “spiritual development” into the westernized astanga world.
When I got to that pose I must have started to cringe my face or doing whatever weird thing with my body because Rolf came to me and approached me harshly saying basically that I need it to be gentle with myself.Good point,somehow he already got me from the beginning.I felt a little defeated in the moment but then I looked at him and got completely mesmerized by the purity of his eyes.
For a teacher is not easy dealing with new students I guess, people all have different stories,different way to approach themselves,to approach their pains and injuries,different way to give voice to their own ego.A teacher dealing for the first time with a student must show strength as well as an ability to stand his ground but yet sweetness must be kept, you have to be able to let the person feel into your arms somehow,you have to make them feel safe. Although I’ve never teach myself I feel that whenever I am in front of a teacher I do not know,I need to feel able to eventually fall and land safely into his/her understanding of the practice, into their experience as well as their willingness to share their own weakness.I feel like a yoga teacher should not be unreachable, should be indeed be a people person, someone that is there when you need to because let’s be honest, the practice it’s hard when it it goes under the surface of the asanas, when it start to penetrate inside shredding layers and layers without really giving you an hard shell or at least a blanket to cover your renewed fresh skin from what we can funnily define “the wind of life”(you can also at this point start to mentally sing “the wind of change” as I am doing so too), I believe that is why is important to have a teacher, not for advance you in the series but indeed to be there when you feel you are falling apart, overwhelmed by the world.
By the end of my practice I was feeling very sensitive, but I was also feeling safe to be. That glimpse that I’ve found in his eyes gave me the courage to be there.
I’ve waited a little and then I tried to make a conversation with one of the girls there, Elise, an american girl that seemed to me very similar to me. She was pretty much on her own and didn’t give me much attention and that left me very curious about knowing her. I then went to have breakfast at the only open cafe during that underrated season and there I’ve fully embrace the post practice sharing wave and I sat down at the “shala table”.
At first I felt awkward in front of all this people but instead of hiding behind my old patterns and improvise an acting scene, I’ve decided to be honest.
I share my fear experienced the day before, and I’ve share my fear of not being yet fully comfortable in the environment, in the culture.
This couple, Andrea and Nimesha particularly struck me. She looked like a model,incredibly beautiful, he looked a bit like a cool guy, I thought in my head that they must have been some rich people whatever from somewhere however. Andrea was Italian and open up to him and her came out much easily to me as we were speaking the same language. I’ve told them that I was feeling really lonely and really scared of not being able to make friends, I told them how everything was new to me, how coming from London, I was finding difficult to approach people and to be comfortable in that type of relax life. Somehow those words they came out from me and got splattered in their faces;when I’ve realized that I immediately felt very vulnerable and afraid of their judgement. The fear lasted few second as the way they both reacted to my words asthonished me. It felt like someone was hugging me inside reassuring me that I will be fine,their words felt really deep,was the first time I could truly feel like I could trust someone so fully that it almost make me cry. I’ve never meet someone so comfortable in their being to be able to just open up to the help of others till that moment when I meet them, although they didn’t escape at first to my fear induced judgmental attitude but I apologize for that, I am still new to the “real” world and everything to me can still look as an enemy but so is not.
I realize then how there are just people in the world able to be themselves, able to nourish themselves, to look beautiful and to be beautiful to the world.
With Andrea and Nimesha I’ve at the beginning felt scared to be a burden that they’ll have to look after, especially when they invited me for breakfast the day after but it didn’t take me long to realize that those two were just genuinely willing to help and that was the first great impression of reality that I’ve got from this new world that I am creating for myself, for this new environment where I am starting to settle down.
People are not enemies here their are oneness