Purely physical

When I decided to focus on teaching yoga and learning to play the flute as major endeavors, it didn't occur to me that these could get harder to do as I age.  I didn't realize that trying to learn the flute would be hard on my jaw, neck, and hands.  But then I didn't realize I had arthritis--just noticed the bumps on my fingers but didn't feel anything.  Now I'm starting to feel them.  My thumbs ache, and I'm starting to develop trigger finger in my right hand.  After not playing the flute for 10 days--the longest I had interrupted my playing since I started taking lessons over a year ago--I really felt it yesterday and last night.  I woke up some time during the night and realized I couldn't unbend my right middle finger.  From having had trigger finger on my left hand, I knew to massage my hand at the base of my finger, and it opened up.  I'm going to the doctor tomorrow to get a steroid shot--hopefully that will work, and I won't have to have surgery like I did on my left hand.

The flute actually seems more physically challenging than yoga, I guess because it's still new.  And the yoga I teach is for seniors and persons with physical impairments, so I'm not trying to do Vinyasas.  But I'm not doing as much "regular" yoga as I should--I feel conflicted about taking classes where I learned to teach.  Like if my tree is wobbly, people will wonder how I can teach. Or wonder why someone who teaches needs to take classes.  I just don't get as much out of yoga when I do it at home.  Or like today, when the time has slipped by (can't stop reading Wolf Hall) and I haven't gotten to it yet.  And I have to go to a meeting tonight, so I'll do some yoga while watching TV.  Not exactly mindful, but I don't like watching TV without doing something else at the same time.