Astanga

I feel like I'm developing an intimate relationship with the garbage dumpster.

I've probably thrown away six bags of garbage/recycling and I've been up and down the elevator all weekend, carrying stuff down to the loading dock.

I placed a box full of items in the back hallway for my neighbours to pick through. It astounds me what people will pick up if it's free. Plastic travel mugs! Blank books! Gone! A jar of honey?! Yes, even a jar of honey! Everything disappeared within an hour. Old binders! A tea strainer! An old plastic spatula? Yup! A worn out skillet? Absolutely! Mind boggling.

The notes and papers from my YTT required two bags, two HEAVY bags, to recycle. I couldn't believe the huge space this created on my bookshelf. I kept some things - pop quizzes, my final exam and essay, chant worksheets and sentimental stuff. When I was finished, the keeper pile fit in a small file folder. Three giant binders were reduced to less than a centimetre. All these years, I've never even looked at this stuff...

I stumbled across the notes I took during my first year of teaching. I used to document every. single. class. Reading these critiques of myself and my fledgling teaching experiences was entertaining. It's a bit like finding the diary you kept when you were 16 years old. CRINGE! And then: RECYCLE!!! No, I didn't keep them. I'd prefer to forget my first year of teaching, thankyouverymuch.

The one thing I wanted to keep was a series of articles by Thomas Myers (Anatomy Trains) that were absolutely fantastic. I'm looking forward to rereading them. Of all the fluff I was forced to read for my anatomy module, those stayed with me.

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Practice today was a typical Sunday practice, with one notable exception: I was able to move past that 'sticky hamstring feeling' and find true openness in my forward bends. Friday's experiment wasn't just a fluke. I was reveling in it! The one pose that still gives me problems is Krounchasana. When that one gets easier, I'll be relieved.

This was probably the futziest (is that even a word?!) practice I've had in ages. At one point, I was camped out on my mat, laying on my belly, propped up on my elbows, carefully studying my fingernails and trying to talk myself into doing my Intermediate poses.

Then I was reading Twitter when I should have been doing Urdhva Dhanruasana. I admitted as much in a tweet, appending it with the #badlady 'hashtag'. Ha, ha! But with all of my futzing, I still finished in 1 hour, 45 minutes.

When I woke up this morning, the sky looked like this:




This is reason enough to wake at 5:30 a.m., non?

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Astanga

Seems I woke up at a stupidly early hour this morning for no good reason.

It's poor manners to waste another person's time because you cannot manage to be organised. Particularly when said person started *her* day at 4:30 a.m. in order to accommodate *your* schedule.

Basic Ahimsa. Or maybe Asteya. Or good old fashioned common sense.

Hrmpf! End rant.

All of which leads me to this moment in time: Sitting in a coffee shop in a part of the city I rarely frequent, yawning as I drink my green tea and killing some time before my next class. Trying to make the best of it, but annoyed all the same.

Practice was good this morning! I was on the mat by about 5:30 a.m. and wrapped up around 7:15. I skimped on backbends today to save time, did only three Urdhva Dhanurasana.

I've been thinking a lot about Supta Kurmasana lately. I feel like this pose is stagnating. I suppose I expected that I might be binding to wrist by now - my shoulders are certainly open enough. I find that this pose comes along more slowly when you're not getting regular shala help.

I think I need more opening in my hips. That would be a good project, and a good preparation for the LBH poses later on in the series too! If anyone knows any 'research poses' in that genre, I'm keen to hear about them.

One of the top search terms for the blog these days is "pulled hamstring ashtanga" (the other one, amusingly, is "jivamukti balm"...seriously, what the heck?!!).

My gimpy hamstring has finally mended and I have full flexibility back in most forward folds. The one exception is Krounchasana, but I didn't have that pose prior to the tear. When he gave me the pose, D offered very specific direction to avoid re-injury. I can come into the left side of Krounchasana without a lot of depth, but minimal discomfort.

I'm surprised by how much sensation I still feel in the area of the tear. It's not pain, more like a tugging. This injury still limits me. I wonder how much longer it will affect my practice? Should I be concerned?

It's been over four months since the injury. I think it may have been a more serious injury than I initially thought.