I'm in Seattle visiting my son, Roy, and his family. Today we visited Whidbey Island and spent some time at the beach at Ft Ebey State Park. The beach reminded me a lot of those in Southeast Alaska. Like a typical Alaskan beach, this one had many old bleached tree trunks lying along the shore above the high tide line.
I played on one of them that was buried in the sand at one end and angled up slightly as it narrowed, so one end was suspended in the air. I walked out it, and as I approached the end and got farther out on the suspended part, it began to oscillate side to side. I tried to calm it down, but my balancing adjustments just added energy to the resonance. Eventually, I jumped off into the sand.
I thought it would be fun to try some yoga poses, so I took off my shoes and socks and spent about a half hour attempting poses like triangle, warrior I and II, intense side stretch and side angle pose. The instability of the log added a lot of challenge to maintaining my balance while moving my body into the shape of the pose. I had to be more keenly aware of my movements, and how to move my upper body while keeping my lower body steady and overall center of gravity in the same place.
I found I could improve my balance on the free end of the snag by maintaining strong focus on my center and visualizing the earth pulling my weight straight down through the log. This intense focus on grounding vertically into the earth kept me from the lateral movements that would start the log to vibrate.
It was a lovely day to enjoy the sun and sea breeze, and play with yoga in a fresh way.
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