Finding My Balance by Mariel Hemingway

Author:Mariel Hemingway
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

10

Dog Tilt and Cat Tilt

I have to admit that because of my short-circuited childhood, I am still looking to capture my full allotment of childlike joy and abandon. I finally am learning to play—entering middle age and learning to play! My daily yoga practice often begins with Dog Tilt and Cat Tilt, two lighthearted poses that really merge into one funny, joyful movement. I’m not even sure if serious yogis have dignified these poses by conferring Sanskrit names on them. Whatever they are really called, though, in the early morning they loosen the joints and muscles of my back like a great stretch. They feel good.

I start on all fours on my mat, with my back forming a tabletop. My hands are outstretched in front and my toes are pointing to the back. On an inhale I reach my head, neck, and upper back toward the sky while simultaneously lifting my butt back and up. When I take that inhale, I use the whole breath to reach the full extension of the stretch; at the same time my middle and lower back are compressing into an arch. The front side of my body awakens.

When I exhale, the action is reversed. My head and neck are lowered and my back arches up like a Halloween cat yowling at the full moon. I don’t want to feel like a scared cat; instead I picture a luxuriating feline stretching out the entire length of her spine in a warm patch of sunshine. I’m trying to hollow my belly, feeding breath and energy into my slowly awakening spine. These postures were part of the reduced yoga workouts I did while I was pregnant with our girls, though my hollowed belly was then more a fantasy as I shifted my precious passenger first forward and then back. Sometimes along with arching up and down, I go sideways like a dog wagging its tail. When I’m feeling particularly frisky, I may have music on, wagging side to side, up and down, and around in circles. If I can forget to be embarrassed, forget to be a grown-up, the unstructured movement gives me a childlike feeling of delight.

After I married Stephen, in 1984, my film career sort of went on simmer. There was work, but my energies were turned to our marriage and our new life together in New York. I made The Mean Season with Kurt Russell while still courting Stephen, and soon after our marriage played the role of protégée to Peter O’Toole’s eccentric scientist in Creator. The most enjoyable film of this period, though the movie itself was terrible, was Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. I loved working with Gene Hackman, who played the evil genius Lex Luthor, and Christopher Reeve, Superman himself, is the quintessential gentleman. In fact, the whole cast was great and the experience of living in London was wonderful. It just goes to show that the experiences of the people making a movie can be totally different from what the audience feels in the theater viewing the finished film.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.