I was a mess last night. My enthusiasm for Lolasana led me to teach it in my afternoon youth yoga class and then demo it in my two evening classes. The kids just love the ‘party favours’ (aka: yoga props). We had a grand old time, lifting up, lifting up, lifting up...
This week was ‘arm balance’ week in my other classes, so I demo’ed Bakasana, Bhujapindasana and Astavakrasana over and over and over again. By the time I finished teaching my last class at 9:30 p.m., I was TOAST.
But Epsom Salts, nine hours of sleep and a couple Tylenol made everything better. I had a fine practice this morning: Full Primary, 5 Intermediate Poses, 3 simply *awesome* Urdhva Dhanurasanas and a nice, lazy closing sequence. I was a bit distracted in the beginning, but as soon as I hit the seated poses I was fully present in my practice.
Because I love vinyasas! I truly do!
Now that I’m onto Lolasana, the seated vinyasas have become great fun! Today, I focused on using core strength for my lift-ups and felt a huge difference. The cork blocks are now ’too high’ to use for lift-ups (yup, those are the very ones I bought last week: no worries, I’ll use them for other things). I found some ‘skinny’ cork blocks at Lululemon but so far, I've resisted. Don’t think I’m wasn’t tempted though!
The fourth and fifth Harry Potter books were nearby and for today, they sufficed. I’m afraid that I will eventually destroy those books if I keep using them as blocks, but hopefully I’ll make rapid progress and graduate to the first and second Harry Potter books (and, dare I say it, graduate to using 'no blocks').
I’m coming up on a two-day Astanga holiday: tomorrow is my regular day off and Sunday is a Moon Day. I have a bunch of YogaDownload classes I’ve been looking forward to and Yoga Today has a Anusara ‘heart opening’ class that might be fun. I’m sure I’ll find a way to fill my time.
I’m pretty sure that my yoga practice is Princess Fur’s favourite part of the day. Think about it: I’m on the floor, a couple feet away where she can observe my every move! I can’t get away without giving her a cookie.
And best of all, my proximity means that she can doze off. Today, she glanced over as I set up for Sirsasana and she released a deep, heart-felt sigh. Dogs do love routine.
This is her happy place:
Yes, she's STILL sitting on the Golden Egg (it hasn't hatched yet).
5 comments:
What are you going to do if that thing hatches? haha
I'm sure those kids just lift up without a problem! Aaah, to be young, bendy and fearless.
Oh my goodness, Princess Fur is adorable! I am struggling majorly with my jump throughs and jump backs and have resisted using blocks as I didn't want to 'cheat'. But after reading your post I'm having second thoughts!
Enjoy de holiday, my shala is always different and we have no moon tomorrow rather it is today... oh well... dog looks adorable!
There's an article on Lolasana in the current YJ magazine...
@Jen
You're right about the kids! It's fun to teach them jump backs because they catch on right away! The 'golden egg' has a squeaky in the middle, so whatever hatches, it's gonna be noisy!
@Beck
I've struggled with this same worry and concluded that blocks are not 'cheating' if you're gradually working towards 'no blocks'. Personally, I think it's a good way to build strength and muscle memory - it's working for me so far!
@LadyRay
Thanks for the heads up about the YJ article. I'll try to get my hands on an copy. Lolasana has become a minor obsession of mine lately.
Post a Comment