Where are I going now...?

This year in spite of getting healthy and doing yoga, it has been a deplorable one in other ways. Before I started yoga at the beginning of my Japan life in March 2011, I had a manditory medical check by nurses and doctors who check all the students and all the staff. They set up at various nursing stations taking blood samples, urine samples, blood pressure, and checking how "fat" you were among other things. The results came back that my heart was "bad" (an irregular heart beat - but I already knew that), and that I was too "fat." Now I've been a guy who has been called skinny all my life, and so this was pretty funny for me. They also told me that I was eating too much sugar. I knew that too. I couldn't stop eating delicious Japanese chocolate when I first came here. Everywhere this delicious boxed chocolate is abundantly available at 24-hour convenience stores located every couple of blocks in Japan. I would go so far to say that Japan stole the convenience store model from the US and shaped it into an abominably perfect masterpiece of shopping utopia for all tastes - in my case - catering to my insatiable craving for chocolate. So, with a bit of struggling at first I knew I had to shape up, and do something to kick or at least control my chocolate habit. One box of chocolate covered almonds a day was intolerable! I was riding my bike a little, but I needed something regular that would take care of my very immobile sitting at a desk reality at my work.

Even though this blog has discussed my hard work getting a yoga training routine going, I've skipped over my illnesses this year like I was something invincible. Illness unfortunately is an important part of the struggle to keep healthy - my struggle - this year. This year I had a week of influenza just after my medical exam. After starting yoga, I've have 1 ear infection, 2 colds (one included a fever), and most recently my last cold included shingles on my left side. In fact, last week I had to take a week off of yoga. This was frustrating and drove me a little crazy. I was trying not to irritate my shingles which if scratched or rubbed will get worse. This week as I began to get a little better, I got back a little into yoga. But, a new obstacle entered the picture. The weather is getting colder, and most homes in Japan, including my own, have no central heating. I have a heater under a floor table called a kotatsu, but this hardly helps when you want to get up and move about. I've ended up doing far more tai chi than I've wanted to do to get my body warm. Then, I have to wear a lot more clothes and be a lot more careful stretching. I also need to cover myself when I go into savasana. Headstands are also out until my sinuses have recovered. My workouts tend to be shorter, and I have to be patient with the cold.

Where am I going now with my yoga practice? I guess now I am learning the lesson of patience, and a better understanding of my vulnerability. I am trying to do what it takes to be healthy rather than obsessing about my yoga progress. I can worry more about that when I am healthy again, and the weather is better. Perhaps my illnesses this year are a sign that the balance of all things in my life (family, work, free time, and yoga) were out of balance. Rather than doing as much as I can - which I think I have been doing - I should try to do a little less as well as I can. This is I think is a better way for me to do the best that I can do without doing too much...