It was when she said in a quiet calm way "space your toes apart", that did it . I contemplated my toes seriously for the first time in my life, smiling inwardly, wondering how do you space your toes? Like it was no problem between the first and second toe, and you could just see a kind of daylight between the second and third toe, but from there on, it wasn't going to happen! They might as well have been glued together. I remember once meeting a man with webbed toes and thinking he must have been an excellent swimmer. My toes were not webbed they were just stuck, together that is.
This stream of consciousness was occurring within the first few minutes of above mentioned feet arriving firmly on mat. I looked at my neighbour's toes they, belonging to a beautiful poised and elegant Palestinian woman, with slim attractive feet, a subtle contrast to my own strong broad peasant feet, with beef to the heel like a Mullingar heifer. I was quietly pleased to see, that she too was having toe issues. Hers were even "stucker" than mine!
The practise in yoga that first day continued to be firmly feet focussed. Now we had to press our toe mounds down and lift the pinkies up, all of them! No problem there I thought proudly, my toes always kind of waved around up in the air of their own accord, sort of perpendicular to the floor rather than horizontal, in fact so much so, that the top of my shoes often wore out before the soles, but that does not concern us here. Keeping said toes aloft and fluttering in the breeze, we then had to press down the little pinky toe mound, then the inner heel mound and finally the outer heel mound. There I was stuck, with the four corners of me feet to the ground, toes at 90 degrees, when she issues the next instruction. "Close your eyes and turn your attention inwards", how in utter of GOD did she seriously expect me to do this when I was in danger of falling over because me feet were super glued to the floor? I bet you nobody else is closing their eyes I thought, I'll just open my eyes a little bit and see if everyone else has theirs shut. Ha! caught the tall skinny guy on the mat to my right with his eyes open, why is he looking at me like that ? He is staring fixedly at my sticky up toes! which I kind of now want to hide away, them having become a source of mortification as opposed to a kind of yogic magic.
This stream of consciousness was occurring within the first few minutes of above mentioned feet arriving firmly on mat. I looked at my neighbour's toes they, belonging to a beautiful poised and elegant Palestinian woman, with slim attractive feet, a subtle contrast to my own strong broad peasant feet, with beef to the heel like a Mullingar heifer. I was quietly pleased to see, that she too was having toe issues. Hers were even "stucker" than mine!
The practise in yoga that first day continued to be firmly feet focussed. Now we had to press our toe mounds down and lift the pinkies up, all of them! No problem there I thought proudly, my toes always kind of waved around up in the air of their own accord, sort of perpendicular to the floor rather than horizontal, in fact so much so, that the top of my shoes often wore out before the soles, but that does not concern us here. Keeping said toes aloft and fluttering in the breeze, we then had to press down the little pinky toe mound, then the inner heel mound and finally the outer heel mound. There I was stuck, with the four corners of me feet to the ground, toes at 90 degrees, when she issues the next instruction. "Close your eyes and turn your attention inwards", how in utter of GOD did she seriously expect me to do this when I was in danger of falling over because me feet were super glued to the floor? I bet you nobody else is closing their eyes I thought, I'll just open my eyes a little bit and see if everyone else has theirs shut. Ha! caught the tall skinny guy on the mat to my right with his eyes open, why is he looking at me like that ? He is staring fixedly at my sticky up toes! which I kind of now want to hide away, them having become a source of mortification as opposed to a kind of yogic magic.
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