Astanga

Slept in until 7 a.m. this morning, but still managed to get my practice in before the household awoke. I did full Primary today. It was a lovely, but unremarkable practice, very similar to yesterday's. Same problems with the Supta Kurmasana and the sticky mat (my old purple Maha). I may need to get a second rug/towel sooner rather than later.

When I'm spending the weekend here, I find that I look forward to yoga practice for the 'me time' as much as anything else. It's nice to have some solitude - I live alone and I'm used to it. And there's a special serenity to practising in the morning, a certain calm. The dog loves it for the sunbeams.


I'm heading downtown, back to my own little apartment later on this morning. It will be nice to get back into my routine, but I hope I can keep getting up early for morning practice.

As it's the beginning of a new month, I wrote this 'progress report' to post on the Ning site for my Yoga Streak:

I last reported progress on my Yoga Streak in early April. I'm now heading into my sixth month of daily yoga practice. Although there have certainly been days that I pulled a 15 minute vinyasa sequence out of thin air at 11:45 p.m. in order to fulfill my commitment, I've actually been quite dedicated to doing a significant daily practice. I've felt the impact this has had on my life and health and it's all positive!

April: In the opening days of April, I received a free pass to the Yoga Show and Conference and spent three happy days at the show's 'yoga garden', enjoying free classes by internationally acclaimed teachers (and a few I hadn't heard of). I came away from the show newly inspired, but had a difficult time reconnecting with my home yoga practice for a few days. During most of the month, I practised a greater mix of styles, flirting with Yin, combination practice with Journey Dance, Anusara and plain old Hatha. There was some Astanga mixed in here and there, but definitely not every other day as I had planned. Late in the month, I realised that I felt better physically than I had in months (since an illness that had me on bed rest last fall) and I missed doing the Primary Series. I dusted off my Beryl Bender Birch 'Power Yoga' DVD (my favourite led Primary) and did the whole thing. I felt great. I did this the next day and the next, until my Lady's Holiday came.

May: In May, resumed a daily practice of the full Primary Series with the occasional 'day off' to practice Hatha or Restorative yoga. I practised the full Primary 18 times in May. I was pleased to notice that I hadn't 'lost' much of my Astanga practice and my strength came back to me quickly. By the end of May, I was back to the level of fitness I had been last summer before I got sick. Clearly, all the daily yoga I've been doing, even the non-vinyasa styles, was beneficial!

I've flitted around with Full Primary these past few weeks, but in June, I want to really return to a true 'six-day' (six days on, one day off) Astanga practice and continue this through the summer. My day off will probably not be Saturday. I'm about to shift into a different pattern of employment this month (I will likely start working a contract as I usually do when summer comes and my teaching schedule lightens) and will base my routine on the demands of work. On the days I'm not practising Astanga, I'll do another type of practice.