My Rocketship

April 20, 2016, rachlsully, Rocket,

When I went to Cincinnati for Rocket training last year, I was getting ready to move to Texas where I spent seven months and nearly 150 hours sharing the Rocket with US Armed Forces members and many wonderful new friends in the community. Of course, just when I was settled in and actually liked where we were stationed, it was time to move again. Not only did I win the military spouse lottery by getting to PCS twice in less than nine months, but this time we were launched all the way across the world, to Germany.

It’s been a wild ride so far since I started this journey into Rocket yoga, but one of the benefits of the practice is that it teaches you to confront obstacles head-on and creatively. For example, the first time trying astavakrasana (i.e. crazy eights) feels unnatural and impossible, but it’s always right there waiting for me in Rocket 2. Astavakrasana is technically a Rocket transition, meaning the pose is basically a fun and challenging way to move around on the mat between other poses. I’ve been working on transitioning from astavakrasana to bakasana (crow) for awhile now, and while I’m not quite there, I’m still enjoying the process. That pretty much sums up where I am in life too. Transitioning between countries, languages, jobs, and friendships, clinging to the old as I hang in the balance, not quite lifting my feet to reach the new.

If yoga teaches us anything, it is that change is constant. My rocketship is going to keep moving and traveling, sometimes at light speed. But as I reflect back on the past year, I know that despite all the distance and time that has passed, the Rocket is the kind of practice that keeps us connected but always evolving. Our last assignment that my teacher Amber gave us was to answer the question, “What is your Rocket?” Now is as good a time as any to share my response because the more I travel and meet other yogis, I find that my rocketship is never lonely.

Hello. How ’bout that ride in? I guess that’s why they call it Cincinnati. Haha. You guys might not know this, but I consider myself a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one-woman rocketship. But when I signed up for rocket training with Amber Gean, I knew she was one of my own. And my rocketship, it grew by one. So there…there were a few of us in the rocketship… Larry was alone first in the rocket, and then Amber joined in later. And 5 days ago when Amber introduced me to Yoga ah studio, I thought “wait a second, could it be?” And now I know for sure, I just added more yogis to my rocketship. All of us yogis, practicing the Rocket together in Northside, looking for coffee and enlightenment.

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