Astanga

I had a good practice this morning. I felt good, my body isn’t as sore. I was kind of expecting some soreness in my legs because I was doing dropbacks against a post in the subway station yesterday. The train wasn’t coming and I had that end of the platform to myself, so why not? I wasn’t coming all the way down, just dropping my hands back and ‘standing up’ by pushing into my heels. I hope the transit constables don’t cite Ashtangi violations!

Teacher P was at the helm this morning. I really like having two teachers. Their styles and adjustments are very different. Teacher P is more laid back. My practices with him are more inward directed. He’s quick to notice if I’m carrying unnecessary tension in a pose; he reminds me to relax.
-I had a very deep Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana today and my balance was good. I remembered to restrain that wandering thumb!
-I bound my hands by myself in Supta Kurmasana and Teacher P crossed my ankles. I’m really noticing the work of my Bandhas in this pose.
-Teacher P gave me my favourite adjustment in Baddha Konasana A & B. It felt really good. There's something about laying my chest on my feet that makes me stupidly happy.
-Chakrasana was mainly absent today. I tried the first one, gave up. Skipped two and decided to really work the fourth one. Teacher R was on call by that point and she glanced in my direction, but left me to it. On the third try, I was able to find the right combination of momentum, leg placement and push through the hands to make it work. I rolled.
-Through some miracle or fluke, I managed to lift up and jump back without touching the floor with my toes. Just once, but WOW! I think it had something to do with bending my arms a little and shifting my weight forward. I learned this in Kino’s workshop, but this is the first time I was able to put it into practice.

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It sounds a bit crazy even to me, but I think adding the Whey Protein smoothies to my diet has made a huge difference. I swear I felt better after drinking the very first one. The smoothies boost my daily protein consumption to 70g (from 40g). If I’m going to continue working this hard in my practice, I need this. I’ve definitely noticed that don’t get those ‘snacky’ urges anymore and I’m better able to avoid junk food.

I’ve been carrying raw almonds around with me and if I get hungry, a small handful takes care of it.

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Last night, I dreamt of cookies.

I was in a huge room filled with tables and these tables were covered with numerous cookie-filled trays. There were cookies of every conceivable variety: sugar cookies with the coloured sugar sprinkles, shortbread-y cookies with fruit centres, gingerbread cookies, chocolate cookies and some others that I didn’t get a chance to sample.

Yes, I was eating them! The sugar cookies were particularly nice! I was moving from table to table, munching.

And as I was eating these Dream Cookies, a single thought kept intruding: “Whoa, this is SUCH a bad idea. If I keep eating these cookies, I’ll never be able to bind Marichyasana D tomorrow!”

I woke up happy! And I was able to bind in Mari D just fine ;-)