Michelle Rae

A personal blog
Michelle Rae
  • About Michelle Ray Cox
  • Tag: Yoga

    • New Years Day Thoughts

      Posted at 9:53 am by Michelle Ray Cox, on January 1, 2022

      New Years Day. It’s still dark, the sun has not risen yet. I have the sliding glass door open so that I hear the soft patter of a gentle rain on the deck outside. It’s warm and balmy on this first day of 2022.

      What a year 2021 was. So many lessons, highs and lows. Pain and joy. Physical, spiritual, emotional rollercoasters. Some of those rides I sunk deep in my seat, holding on as best I could, eyes tightly closed, breathing through the fear. Other rides were experienced with my hands held high, laughing and joyful.

      This time last year I was struggling through knee deep snow in Pagosa Springs, living with Steve, Mick, Mojo, Zoe and Noodles in our cabin on the side of a mountain. The horses in winter pasture in Arboles.

      Today, I sit in my house in Little Rock. My quirky geodesic dome house with mandala ceilings. Mick is beside me in my chair. Zoe and Mojo are gone their bodies no more, their spirt and souls forever part of me. Noodles is in her Pig Palace and it’s 58 degrees with a light rain. The horses are in Hot Springs at my friends Jim and Courtney Robinson’s beautiful farm. Steve is in Alabama visiting friends and family and doing the paperwork on his new home there.

      Painting rocks began as a whim and a fun activity to do with Keely when they visited Pagosa three years ago. Painting mandala became a passion, a joy, and now a way to supplement my income. The martial artist that left Little Rock twelve years ago is now a mandala artist. I’m looking forward to creating art again. I’ll be selling locally as well as online. I’m still deciding on how and where for the online, but several have offered to sell my art here in Little Rock. I could never have imagined this, how beautiful are the ways of God, Divine Mother, the Universe.

      There is a call that I’m hearing telling me to write . I will be blogging again, starting with chronicling what happened with my hip. If what I went through, am going through, can help others, then that would be another reason to be grateful for what happened.

      Relationships and friendships shift over time. Some become closer, some fade away, we grow, we change, we all have our own journey. But love is real and true and powerful. What we give to others is given back. What we show to others is reflected back. Choose love. Choose kindness. Experience life with an open heart. I know this deep in my soul.

      My intention was to start yoga teacher training in March. That may not be possible now but there is always the next year. In the meantime, I have a lot of knowledge about how to heal and recover from an injury or surgery. That is what I have been doing for the last twenty five years. This injury is different. A broken titanium hip and an extremely complicated revision surgery at age 64 is not the same as an elective surgery at 57. My way of experiencing this different. My time in Pagosa, my spiritual journey, my diving into yoga and mindfulness laid the groundwork for my certainty that this will be another powerful lesson that I am meant to learn. I feel led to share that journey.

      There is a peace in knowing that I have no control. I can plan, I can try, I can rage and fight, but there is a force much bigger than me, that is part of me, that has a wisdom and knowledge of unfathomable depth and breadth. This was one of the hard won lessons I was meant to learn. I did not enjoy the process, but I am grateful for the knowing.

      The past provides an opportunity to learn if I allow it. If I open my heart, clear my mind, and open the boxes where I have stored the stories, the shame, the hurt, the experiences. Then I can let them float away. Some return. Some change. Some disappear. It’s why I am here. To learn.

      There is joy in the present. In the now. In the sacred pause between each breath. The sun filtering through the trees, the sky and the stars, the relaxed sigh of my dog, the smell and touch of those I love. The water of my beloved river flowing over the rocks, my feet. The laughter of friends, the tears and the hugs as we grieve and mourn, holding each other as we navigate this thing called life.

      Change is going to happen. It is the nature of life. I really have little input or control over much of it and it’s a waste of time to worry and stress about what might be. Accept what is. I do what I can, I’ve got a good brain and I can use it. But by letting life unravel as it will, with love and an open heart, I have witnessed magic and miracles that could only come from a source much greater than me. What a wonderfully powerful lesson I have been given.

      I am an artist. I use colors and patterns to express what is in me and what I see and feel. I am also the artist of my life, and the colors and patterns of the people and experiences in my palette have created a mandala that continues to astound me. We are all artists. We all paint the canvas of our lives.

      A new mandala painting is forming today. It will weave and expand, dots of experiences and connections, coming together to form something unique and beautiful. There will be dark, the black of fear and uncertainty. That is as it must be. Because the colors and light, the joy and love, can only be seen against that black backdrop. My life.

      Posted in Life | 6 Comments | Tagged Art, mandala, pagosa springs, spirituality. Little Rock, Yoga
    • WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU DID SOMETHING FOR THE FIRST TIME?

      Posted at 6:54 pm by Michelle Ray Cox, on June 24, 2013

      first time

      I remember the first time Robin mentioned the phrase “we are going to work on our inversion practice.” I started trying to retrieve the meaning of “inversion” and kept mentally throwing away the definition I came up with because it just could not be right. Inversion meant upside down didn’t it? Maybe she meant submersion practice? But how would we submerge in a yoga studio?

      She did a demonstration. Yep, she meant upside down. Like stand on your head upside down.

      Holy cow was this girl crazy?

      Robin and Justin had been fellow students in yoga classes that I took in Canon City. Our instructor, Marie Bailey, wanted to fully immerse herself in yoga so she moved to Florida to live at an ashram. I tried some classes in Pueblo after Marie left, but it was a long drive and it just didn’t seem worth it.

      Then I heard about Robin and Justin. They had started River Lotus Yoga in Canon City and they had classes during the day. I remembered them as being young, and very “bendy” which is a good thing in yoga. The bendy part. The young can be good or bad. Ok, it was worth a try and the first class was free.

      They were operating out of a martial arts dojo in those early days last year. Many times Robin and I were the only ones there for class. I liked the variety of poses, I liked that I was challenged, I liked that we didn’t hold the poses for so long that I started doing my shopping list in my head.

      Then came the day of the “inversion practice”.

      Robin gave me several alternatives to standing on my head. I think she saw the look of incredulous mutiny on my face. So the first few times I’d lay on my back with my feet on the wall. Then that started feeling too lazy and like a cop out, and I graduated to my hands on the floor and my feet on the wall at a 90 degree angle. That was certainly more challenging, and I was “inverted” but I wasn’t standing on my head.

      I did not want an inversion practice thank you very much. I didn’t care if the wall was there or not, I did not want to be upside down. I didn’t like it and I was not going to do it. The toxins that were in my body had been there a very long time, and I was ok with them hanging around indefinitely.

      After a few weeks it started to sink in that this was not a phase she was going through, and she was not going to give up on this idea of an inversion practice.

      So I did a tripod. You put your head down, place your hands at the base of the triangle formed between your head and hands, and stick your knees on your arms.

      I was happy there. I was upside down and I felt pretty stable. I did that for a few weeks.

      Then the classes started to grow. We moved into our own really cool yoga studio. And the classes got bigger and bigger.
      The inversion practice did not go away. I started to get pissed off because IT DID NOT GO AWAY.

      Driving home from class one day, I thought of something one of my instructors used to tell me all the time.

      “That which is hard is your test”

      Somehow, me getting upside down had become my test.

      There was not anything physically keeping me from standing on my head. Fear was holding me back. Once I used that word “fear” in my conversation with myself instead of “I don’t like it” I realized that this was something I absolutely had to do. No way was I going to not do something like stand on my head because I was afraid of it. Especially since other people in the class were standing on their heads and some were working on hand stands. And that really bendy Gumby clone Justin (Robin’s husband) was practicing a one-handed hand stand for Pete’s sake!

      I’m not going to bore you with the process I went through of learning how to stand on my head. At times it was definitely not pretty. I will tell you that knowing how to tuck and roll is very important. But I will show you a couple of pictures, taken this Saturday at a Yoga in the Park class that Robin taught.

      Yes, that is me doing a handstand in the park

      Yes, that is me doing a handstand in the park

      Notice there was no wall to catch me.

      Yes, this is me playing around with my leg position while in a headstand.

      Yes, this is me playing around with my leg position while in a headstand.

      Notice there was no wall to catch me. Notice I am actually smiling.

      And just to show you some total awesomeness, this is Justin, yoga instructor and river raft guide, doing a handstand on a boat in the Whitewater Festival this weekend in Canon City.

      Justin Englerth  handstand in the Whitewater Festival 2013

      Justin Englerth handstand in the Whitewater Festival 2013

      I’ll be 56 years old this year. I feel grateful that I was given the gift of the opportunity to do something I had never done by a very gently persistent yoga instructor named Robin Beals.

      So…

      first time

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      Posted in Life | 0 Comments | Tagged canon city white water festival, canon city yoga, justin englerth, river lotus yoga, robin beals, when was the last time you did something for the first time?, Yoga
    • I WISH I HAD FIGURED THIS OUT TWENTY YEARS AGO

      Posted at 3:23 pm by Michelle Ray Cox, on July 18, 2012

      I love martial arts. I love the challenge of learning new forms and new techniques. I love sparring. I love hitting bags and pads. I love escrima sticks and learning knife and gun disarms.Nothing ever engaged my mind, body and soul like martial arts. That’s why I’ve done them for over 35 years.
      And that’s why I have a lot of the injuries I have.
      Right after I bought Little Rock Taekwondo in 2000, I had ACL surgery on my knee. I’d gotten kicked in the side of the knee in class during a two on one sparring session. The kick guillotined my ACL and there was no option but to undergo surgery to repair it.
      Honestly, the ACL surgery wasn’t all that bad. But during Physical Therapy I tore my quad. Neither the therapist nor the doctor believed me, so I kept on with the prescribed therapy. Then I started having leg spasms. Holy cow they hurt. Back to the doc, he still didn’t believe my self diagnosis. Long story, but I ended up changes doctors, getting the diagnosis that my quad was “unraveling” and wearing a full leg cast (in August) for a month to try to immobilize the muscle. That didn’t fix it and I was told it was going to take some time to heal.
      It took over two years. After some acupuncture sessions with Martin Eisle of Evergreen Acupuncture, my leg got better and I could start training in martial arts again.
      A couple of years later I went to the doctor to see if he could treat my torn groin muscle. Imagine my surprise when he informed me I needed total hip replacement. On both hips. But one was worse than the other so I elected to have the left hip replaced. I’ll have to get the right one replaced sometime but I’m not in any hurry.
      The next year, shoulder surgery on the right shoulder. They will both need to be replaced at some time.
      The quad injury still gives me more trouble than any of the other injuries. Apparently the scar tissue has shortened the muscle. The result is a lot of pain when I do squats or lunges, kicks or stretching.
      I am not saying that martial arts are responsible for all of my aches and ailments. I am the first to admit that I am a Type A overachiever. The need for a challenge, the need to push myself, has been a huge factor in what I am dealing with now.
      If I could go back twenty years and talk to a younger self, my advice would be to use some moderation in my training. I’m trying to take that self advice now.
      The daily requirements when I did the UBBT in 2009 were:
      100 pushups
      100 crunches
      2.5 miles cardio
      4 rounds of sparring
      4 repetitions of my pattern (Moon Moo for all you TKD readers)
      Not only did I meet those minimums, but I would do parts of that workout three or four times a day when I was teaching classes.
      When I tested for my 5th Dan in December of 2009 I was in great shape. But my body is still paying the price today.
      So I’m doing Crossfit three to five days a week. The classes are only fifteen to thirty minutes long but we go full out for that length of time. A session or two on the Stairmaster that we have downstairs if I miss Crossfit. Yoga for an hour and a half two days a week. If I miss the class I do it at home. Hopefully I’ll be doing Krav Maga again twice a week if we can get the instructor to do classes during the day.
      But here is the big difference. If we are supposed to do lateral jumps over a weight bar in Crossfit, I modify the technique and do the jumps with no obstacle. I don’t do the 400 meter runs, I jump rope. I don’t try to overload my shoulders with the heaviest weights I can stand, and I use a lighter kettle bell so that I can get the reps in.
      In other words, I’m listening to my body. I know the difference now between a pain that is screaming “stop doing this” and discomfort because of working muscles.
      Let me just say that I really don’t like yoga. The reasons why are another blog. But during a conversation with my sister Tracey last week I urged her to give yoga a try. And I told her not to roll her eyes (which I knew she was doing and she admitted it)
      Yoga is a good balance for the hard and punishing workouts I do. It’s a good balance for the running that Tracey is doing. It’s complimentary to martial arts and just about anything else you might be doing. So find a yoga class, grit your teeth and do it. It’s good for you. And you will thank yourself 20 years from now.
      Find your activity, whatever it is, and do it on a consistent basis. But don’t overdo it.
      My ego, pride, competitive nature, whatever term you want to use, is what keeps me pushing to do one more rep, one more mile, or to hold a yoga position when my arms are shaking. I have to recognize that I can’t do what I once did, and concentrate on what I can accomplish rather than what I can’t do.
      Wish I had figured this out twenty years ago.

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      Posted in martial arts | 8 Comments | Tagged Crossfit, Evergreen Accupuncture, hip replacement, Martin Eisle, shoulder surgery, Taekwondo, Yoga
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