Astanga

Last night, while I read a book and played my guitar, a thunderstorm raged outside (my balcony fun was cut short by the storm moving in - and it was a doozy). I love sitting by the window and watching a storm. I felt all warm and cozy and happy.

Then I watched junk T.V. - reruns of Law and Order - while surfing around on iTunes listening to sound clips. I'm such a music junkie. I need a bigger high drive. And unlimited funds :-)

This morning, I woke with the entire day stretching ahead of me like a open-skied vista and decided to allocate a large chunk of that time to my practice. I dug out my old Beryl Bender Birch 'Power Yoga' DVD and did the full Primary Series.

Fun!!!

It felt so good! it's funny how I never seem to hold the memory of how good the full Primary feels. I only seem to recall how difficult it can be. I had a wonderful, sweaty, vigourous practice and really surprised myself throughout. Vinyasa between each pose and each side of a pose didn't kill me. I can still do Garba Pindasana, though my hands aren't anywhere near my forehead as I roll. Alas, my bind is gone in Supta Kurmasana, but I easily came into and held Bakasana (Beryl slips it in after Ukatasana and the Warrior poses).

The biggest surprise was backbending. About once a week, I do a total 'play' practice with a lot of backbending and inversions (mostly handstand and headstand). As recent as last year, I remember really struggling with the backbending on this DVD. I never managed to make it through all three repetitions and I needed to rest in between each. Today, I held each Urdhva Dhanurasana for the duration, and only lowered my head to the floor in between. This is a *first*.

Really, I was flabbergasted. I really didn't think that my sporadic practice of Urdhva Dhanurasana/Ustrasana was doing me any good. I also wonder how much of this progress is due to my Yoga Streak (daily practice). Or perhaps mixing up styles of yoga has developed areas of my practice that might have been stagnating with Astanga alone.

Anyway, I felt like a million bucks at the end of my hour-and-a-half practice which, of course, means that I'm newly enthused about the Primary Series and determined to do the full series more often. We'll see how that plays out.