Astanga

Amazing day, *long* day.

Practice was in the morning, before all the fun. I did the full my full Primary Series, indoors, back to the old routine and it felt great. I even did handstands.

New rule for handstands: No more kicking up. I'm forcing myself to jump up, even if it means that I hover around with my knees tucked for a long time, never straightening my legs. It needs to happen eventually and the bottom line is, I'll never be able to do this pose without a wall if I keep kicking up. Also, kicking up is easy-peasy. I need to challenge myself.

The other work-in-progress is nailing jumpthroughs and jumpbacks. I'm getting close, sort of. The rest of my practice is coming along so nicely, this is really the last element: the transitions.

The rest of my day had nothing to do with yoga. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and food for picnic (my usual: fruit, lavash, hummus) and headed to the beach for the day. It was fantastic: perfect weather, not too crowded (though more crowded than Saturday; everyone has figured out that the ferries are running again...drat!) and the water was clean.

What do I mean by clean? Okay: this is a lake, a lake next to a large city. There is *gulp* e coli in our water, to varying degrees. If it's more than 100ppm (parts per million) you're not supposed to swim in it. To be honest, I probably swam in dirtier water as a kid, living at the lagoon, but I'm a grown-up now and more squeamish. Lately, the e coli counts have been hovering around 30ppm, which is great, definitely swimmable. I'm not a big lake swimmer, but I'll give it a go when it's 30.

Today, it was 39ppm. I did swim, but didn't stay in for long. After that, it got hazy and very, very windy. We were considering making an quick exit when we noticed the waves. The WAVES! We almost never get any kind of wave action at the lake, but these were 2-3 foot mini-breakers on our beach! We headed in, cautiously (apparently, I was standing there with my ankles in the water in my bikini, knees knocking together, shivering).

The water felt good once I adjusted to it. The waves were so much fun! They were rough enough to knock down an adult (the life guards were hovering nervously, as there were children in the water). One kid was even body-surfing!

We stayed for about an hour, laughing and enjoying the 'surf.' As we were leaving the water, I noticed that the information board had been updated and the e coli was 11ppm (!). That's incredible. Lots of deep lake water being pushed to our side of the lake (Ha! Take *that*, New York!)

We dried off and headed to the island restaurant for an overpriced meal and drinks on the patio. We missed our ferry and played on the playground equipment and goofed around on the basketball court (the island kids leave a ball there) for a while until the next one came at 9 p.m.

The playground is an Ashtangi's paradise! There is a huge, cylindrical climbing structure made of rope. No kids on it today, so I climbed all the way to the top, then hooked my feet and hung upside down (my partner just shook her head: “Do you want to *lose* your supper?!*).

Fun, fun, fun! Photos next time I'm there.