FEBRUARY 3, 2010 - SALTWATER THERAPY
It was early August of last year and my final week of 200-Hour Yoga Teacher Training. I lived in the villas near the school grounds with two fellow students. We had been paired together ad-hoc and yet our sensibilities complemented one another. When all three of us returned home from our daily evening classes, we had a ritual of putting tea on the stove and raiding the fridge for snacks – sunflower seed butter, nutella, pineapple - before turning in. Some of the most wonderful and truthful conversations I had that month emerged in those hours.
Meanwhile, as training wore on, my enthusiasm to surf waned.
In the beginning, I dived into the water at every break. I purchased a board (Shamu), broke my first leash, and learned how to walk barefoot to the beach. I’m getting Tico feet, I would say to amazed, flip-flopped passersby. I started to become self-conscious, however, as my reputation as a surfer amongst our class grew. I had not realized (how could I not realize?) how many of them had seen me carrying my board or floating in the line-up at sunset. And once I did, I also realized they all very likely saw me go over the falls ad infinitum and flub most – if not all – the green waves I caught. Rather than hear their comments as words of support, I translated them into Reasons to Have Performance Anxiety.
So with reluctance that final Thursday morning, I changed into my Santa Teresa surf bikini, threw on my rashguard, and began my trudge to Baker’s Beach. I purposefully started my walk an hour before class – this way, I could get obligatorily wet, but not have to spend too much time in the surf. “I have to get to class,” I could shrug in the line-up after half an hour and catch a wave in with their sympathy.
That day, however, the beach I had seen countless times before took on a curious lightness. The sky was a lapis blue and the ocean its faithful mirror. The waves I knew to crash like frothy monsters over my head seemed inviting, even kind. It was high tide so the walls of each wave were not steep, the breaks not sudden, and for once the peaks plenty for sharing. The crowd in the water numbered few. I said hello to some of my fellow yoginis sunning on the sand before heading out with friend C.
As I paddled to the outside, I observed other surfers ride effortlessly down the line. Then I turned my gaze to the horizon once in the line up. While normally it looked like a shifty enigma to my untrained eye, for that brief moment my vision turned 20/20. With exercised patience and uncanny timing, I caught waves. Plural.
This is spelled b-r-e-a-k-t-h-r-o-u-g-h.
When I paused to face the beach, I saw my peers start to pack up their towels, put away their shade umbrellas, and begin their journey to class. I instantly knew I would not be joining them. I had (almost) perfect attendance and could afford the absence to be in the ocean’s presence.
I watched the clear, endless sky and the infinite waves and water. I watched C catch waves and watched out for my own. It was as though suddenly everything was aligned, like the world was conspiring with me to find ah-ha samadhi in saltwater.
An hour later, the sea fell flat. I lost momentum. I decided to leave the party early, shower and show up (late) to class. All the students were in the middle of a co-listening meditation. I went up to senior assistant teacher K to be my partner. For the first part of the exercise, I was supposed to answer the question – stream-of-consciousness style – what is your yoga?
“Before we begin, I just wanted to let you know I’m late because I was surfing,” I blurted out. “The waves were just perfect, you know? So good.”
K was a surfer, too. I thought she would sympathize.
“You don’t have to apologize,” K responded.
“I know,” I paused. “And I’m not. I just had to say it and get it out of the way. Otherwise it would be in the back of my mind this entire exercise. So I just wanted to start by clearing the air.” And then I blabbed for five minutes riffing on what is my yoga.
In the second part of the exercise, K had to say back what she heard. It was intended as an an exercise in observing thought processes through an outside lens.
“What I heard,” she began, “is your yoga is surf.”
2ND IN A SERIES (1st HERE) & will figure out ‘read more’ function for the rest. Sorry ‘TL; DR’ crowd…
image of AE in Hawaii, photographer unknown.
