relax your inner ear

I first started doing yoga some 10 years ago. There was an Iyengar studio just around the corner and for those first many months I had to force myself to go, literally haul myself out of bed to make a 10am Saturday class.

It got to a point, of course, where I was up and dressed and out the door, on my way to yoga without even thinking about it. It wasn't any longer a decision to go, just something I did. Ah, the first of many transformations along my yoga journey, including an end to lower back pain and the ability to relax my inner ear without falling over from rolling my eyes.

So I've done yoga on and off over the last decade: only once during the three years we lived in Sydney, twice a week before my first pregnancy, only prenatal yoga since. And then yesterday, my first regular class since coming to the US. And it was great, I loved being there, loved being in a yoga studio, concentrating on rotating my inner thigh outwards while pressing down with my big toe. And, as with many things in life, "the trick is to keep breathing".

(Image from Gray's Anatomy via Wikimedia Commons - "Right human membranous labyrinth, removed from its bony enclosure and viewed from the antero-lateral aspect. (G. Retzius.)")