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How Old Am I?
I hear a lot about how everyone has been so busy lately, and so have I. I don’t even feel like I’ve been sleeping enough. Why have I been so busy? Well, the list I’ve drawn up on things I have to do is too long to show you, but here is the partial stuff: regular work; acting class; assignment for the class; networking by attending film festivals; meeting with my fellow actors about possibly making films together; writing scripts; rehearsing the play I’ll be doing this month; and practicing Koto for more performances – and there’s still much more on my list!
The ultimate priority is that I have to find a place to stay during this busy schedule. Sigh… It’s all too much, but sometimes you just have to keep moving.
Can you believe that everything I’ve mentioned has happened in the last month and will continue to the next month?! Yet, in spite of all those busy days last month, I still found some time to walk three miles with a dog, so it wasn’t too bad. Because I’d been doing only a limited amount of exercise, however, I could feel the very strong and heavy tension in my body, especially my lower back, shoulders, and right arm – pain that is particularly caused by playing Koto.
I’d also had a slight pain in my right hand for more than a month and couldn’t get rid of it, no matter how hard I tried. I tried many remedies, including acupuncture, which I’d gone to several times already. I even trained my left hand to use the computer mouse because my right hand was so useless. I kept thinking, “Man, I feel so old because I can’t move as quickly as I used to and my body is so stiff. And I even walk with slouching shoulders!!” I tried not to slouch my shoulders, but my body was too tired to hold them in the right posture for long. That’s how bad I was.
All the bad habits, my busy schedule, too many responsibilities, not enough exercise, slouching shoulders, and the pain in my body combined to bring on some depression as well. Nothing was going well.
I knew that the pain of my lower body was occurring because my body wasn’t aligned properly. In my head, I could hear my body screaming. But I knew that Yoga could help me to get through this.
It took a while but I finally went to a Yoga class last week!! Yay! I’d been curious about Silver Lake Yoga studio, so I checked its schedule and there was a beginner’s class in the morning. I woke up a bit earlier and went to the first class. I was so excited to go back to yoga practice, as well as to discover a new yoga class and instructor.
The instructor was Jonathan Emerson, a co-founder of Silver Lake Yoga – Christina has also written about his class. I was the second person to enter the room and had a little time to chat with him. While I was filling out the registration form, he asked me if there was anywhere I was hurt or injured. I told him “Well, my right arm has been icky, my lower back is hurting, and I have a chronic neck pain….” I wanted to say more but I felt ashamed of myself – I’m supposed to be young, but my body feels like it’s 60 or 70 years old!! Yikes…. Anyway, I had a feeling that Jonathan didn’t believe the list I gave him about all my pain. Ha ha!
There were about 10 to 12 people of mixed gender in the class. It wasn’t too crowded, though, as we had enough space between each other. After Jonathan asked if there were any injuries he had to know about and what we wanted to concentrate on that morning, he started the class by getting us to focus on breathing and very gentle stretching. I immediately started to feel better just by focusing on my own breathing while stretching gently. That was just what I needed.
Although I hadn’t been practicing yoga for months, I didn’t find any difficulties in the beginner’s class. I mean, because it’s the morning class, Jonathan probably wanted to do smoother and slower exercises than the ones in the evening – and so did we. Toward to the end of the class, I began to feel relaxed and calm – something that I hadn’t felt for such a long time.
I had a really good time taking Jonathan’s class and treating my body well. I want to go back to this studio again, and maybe next time I’ll try a Pilates class.
Koto Performance and Yoga:
[tags]busy, depression, silver lake yoga, jonathan emerson, pilates, beginner’s yoga class, yoga in the morning[/tags]
