Warrior Two

The night before the hearing I went to yoga, and we did the warrior two pose (it looks like this ) and I stared along my outstretched arm and middle finger as though I had magic laser eyes, able to bore into the back of any given lawyer's skull. And I felt strong, even though that glare isn't quite strong enough to push a hurtling 4WD out of your path (I tried that, as well as various other things, and nothing worked). When I'd first re-taught my broken knee to bend, in the first few weeks after leaving hospital, there was a day when I got my yoga mat out put the crutches aside, and moved slowly into Warrior Two. El Prima and my mum stood in the doorway and cheered, and I stared along the line of my arm and thought, "bring it on universe - if you want to mess with me, I will take you on." It doesn't last all that long, but I have to grab those moments of strength when I can.

The hardest and the best bit for me about yoga is the part where you are doing something difficult, where it feels like your bones just cannot move the way you are asking them to. It is uncomfortable and your initial reaction is, no - enough, I can't do this. But then you notice the discomfort, acknowledge it, breathe in, and then as you breathe out, you move past it. You ask an open question of your body, and sometimes your body responds in surprising ways. Things unfold, settle, stretch. And you realise that the thing you had thought was imaginably difficult - well, you've already been doing it for 30 seconds. The answer was there all along, within you, you just needed to ask the right question, and to listen patiently for an answer.

It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it is good. It restores my faith, it reminds me that sometimes my body knows more than my mind.