As I have said in previous posts, I am very grateful for my beloved Yoga Circle Studio going "Live" with online classes. As this Covid-19 lockdown goes on, we are indeed creating a "new normal" for ourselves and that includes getting back some of what we lost when life as we knew it abruptly shut down.That said, it has not all been smooth sailing. The studio spent some time beta testing the software that makes online live feed available to us. There was (for me anyway) a complicated sign in process and once signed in we encountered some audio challenges. We all persevered and with continuous feedback and tweaking, it now seems to work well.
On MY end, however, I'm still working out the kinks. I still have a hard time logging in and inevitably end up in a "redirect" loop that takes me back to where I started until by some quirk of magic I click on a right link and Voila! I'm in. I wish just once I'd figure out how I did it so I could duplicate the process every time. I'm sure this is no fault of the process, but rather my brain. I run into these glitches on other sites as well. I'm not super terrible at navigating Computer Land, but hey, I still remember black & white TV and recall my mom listening to soap operas on the kitchen radio. Tech is not my native language.
Once connected to class it's great to see the studio, and our terrific teachers, and familiar faces of yogi friends. As students sign in we mostly we can see each other in little boxes across the bottom of the screen rather like on Zoom. But for me to see well, I have to get really close and when I glimpse my gigantic head peering into the camera I scare even myself. Not a good look!
Class often starts with us sitting and letting the instructor know what we'd like to work on so my computer screen is placed appropriately to make my head appear in the middle of the screen for that. But the moment we are asked to lie down I, of course, disappear. So I try to adjust my screen to capture at least some of my body, but who knows? Because the little box where I appear is hard for me to see without my glasses, which by this time I've ditched.
I go ahead with the class wondering at various points how big my butt must look to the teacher seeing me on her computer as I roll around in Happy Baby pose. I wonder if, in Mountain Pose, all she can see is my torso with my pants heading south and my shirt heading north. I keep trying to catch a glimpse and make appropriate adjustments to ensure some decorum, but it's a daunting task.
At some point I notice most other students have turned off their video and I begin to understand why. All that self-monitoring is distracting. But I also feel that if the instructor can't see us, she can't know if we are doing something truly dangerous that she should correct....or whether we've grown distracted and started to scroll Facebook.
I also need to move more furniture, but I try to keep the coffee table close for my computer to rest on so I can see the screen, which means much of the time when I'm lying down my legs are extended under the table. To move them I have to move me again, skootching up and then often whacking my head or my arms on chairs surrounding me. This is just laziness on my part; I try to squeeze into too small a space for being able to effortlessly achieve full range of motion.
In spite of these personal failings and "yoga at home" challenges, I'm still grateful. I'm grateful for the calming cadences of my teachers' instructions, for a glimpse of the most beautiful yoga studio in the world, for moving my body, and and for eventually finding moments of stillness of mind. I can laugh at my clumsiness and know with a sense of peace and acceptance: "this is real"; "this is now"; "this is life"; this is yoga!
Namaste, donnajurene
Love your posts, Donna.
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