can't be helped

I really do hate losing it in Kali class, but sometimes it can't be helped. The body still sore and recovering from Friday's all-women's class, I entered this morning's class rather stiff. Everyone demonstrates the technique on each other's body and you allow them to do the same to yours. The trick is to allow the blow to pass through your body rather than have it linger. It looks like a wave through the body. But being stiff didn't help much. Waking up late for class didn't help much either. But what can I say it was a good sleep on a Sunday morning? And I remember dreaming that I was late for class and that I was riding a mo-ped whose engine kept conking out on me. And I was riding through Oakland up and down these steep and busy roads. Oh, and I kept wondering if the brakes worked on it because I would squeeze the handlebars and it didn't seem like I was slowing down.

Anyway...
As much as I try getting the energy to pass through my body, there is a threshold when suddenly it seems as though the body is now unusually sensitive to the blows. I start to wince more, the body feels the shock more. It all seems to escalate and I can't keep up with it, the body refuses to let go and there is no longer an escape. And then you feel it, this mixture of panic, fear, vulnerability, lonliness, a feeling of being shattered, of being completely lost in your own body, of being completely detached yet experiencing my body fully. A feeling of breaking apart. And it hurts, not so much in a physical way, like when you stub your toe, but somewhere deep as if the body just wants to cave into itself.

Then I can't help but just full on weep, I can't hold on anymore, I can't pass the energy through, I can't relax. The weeping is the only thing left I can do.

It takes me a few moments to find myself again, but the sensitivity to another person's touch remains and I have to stop. As if even the slightest touch ripples through me.

And then I feel bad. I'm a bit embarrassed by it all. A part of me thinks that I shouldn't be so sensitive. I mean, I really haven't seen other people break down and cry in class. And I always feel stupid for crying. Then I get self-conscious and wonder what people think, am I doing it for attention, am I doing it for sympathy?

I hate crying in public. It's just about the last thing I would choose to do, simply because crying is a very private thing for me, and to be so intimate so publicly. So, why write about? Because I need to understand this thing, figure out what is really going on.

It takes a while for the experience to dissipate. Even in writing this 3 hours later I can still easily reach and touch that vulnerable spot inside me as the tears well up again. I have a headache and the body is tired and relaxed.

It makes me wonder about the path I continue to choose. It's less about a single choice as it is the choice to continue.