A shift

I haven't been doing a very good job of writing short, concise posts, have I? Here's one.

Beyond the daily intensity of Pincha Mayurasana, I have a lot going on. My hard drive crashed this week, but my glass is half full: I'm seizing this opportunity to start fresh and clean. I replaced the drive, restored my data from backups and all is well (almost done!). It's been time consuming, but kind of fun.

Cat sitting season is in full swing! I'm visiting with two lovely kitties twice a day and I absolutely *heart* them. The gray one loves belly rubs, the brown one likes to play. I'm having a ball tending them.

Those LBH poses are rocking my body boat. The left hip has always been my 'tight' side. There's been a shift - the right side is tighter. Over the past few days, I've been receiving intensely deep adjustments in Eka Pada, especially on the right side. Agony, but the good kind.

Tomorrow: Primary Series and hopefully, a long, satisfying nap.


Love!!!

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Accidental Hiatus

Summer was seductive and elusive this year. She approached coyly, dancing just out of reach, then finally swept me up in a tight embrace. I found myself instantly smitten, dizzy with heat and honeysuckle and the intoxicating glow of day lilies.

I've been so distracted! I think I'm in love :-D. This is my season! I adore the sun, I crave the heat and luxuriate in the slower pace of the summer months. I even love the humidity (you can take a girl out of the South, but I guess you can't take the South out of the girl!).

I haven't been blogging because I've been busy soaking up sunshine under flawless blue skies, snacking on fresh-picked mulberries along endless afternoon walks and spending my evenings on the balcony with friends, watching sunsets paint the skyscrapers pink.

I've also been doing a LOT of yoga. During the last weeks of June, my teaching schedule trickled to part-time. On most days, in addition to morning Mysore practice, I've been going to other yoga classes. A dear, longtime friend of mine is visiting from abroad. He loves hot yoga so I've been going to as many hot classes as I can fit in. I've been revisiting some of my favourite teachers at Hot Central and it's been so much fun! I've also been attending a couple of vinyasa classes each week and filling in the gaps with some fun home practices.

I should also come clean about something: I haven't been writing because I really don't know what to say about my practice.

I'm in the first months with this new-to-me teacher in a new shala with rules that I'm still trying to figure out. Practising in this room sometimes feels like a game of Whac-a-Mole. You know the one I'm talking about? At carnivals?

The player holds a big, soft 'hammer' and the 'moles' stick their heads out. But as quickly as they appear, they disappear. One appears in a corner and you think you've nailed it, but another one pops up just as quickly in the far corner. Then another, then another, all in different places. It's disorienting. You can't keep up with them!


Photo credit: Filched off the Internet. If it's yours, let me know and I'll credit you.
I've been bombarded with a lot of new information over the past three months, which I'm slowly trying to integrate into my practice. But whenever I think I've finally figured something out, another thing pops up. I think DT is sometimes frustrated by my seeming inattention to the details, but I really *am* listening to her. It's just a lot to process. My practice has changed ten-fold in the past three months. I think my brain is still catching up with my body.

Sometimes, I feel a bit lost.

After years of practising Primary, I'm facing Intermediate on my mat every day. I never thought I would be here. I used to insist that I would never get to second series. Only very recently have I started to feel like this is *my* practice, the work I'm supposed to be doing. For a while there, I felt like an interloper, doing someone else's yoga practice. Intermediate is challenging and awesome, but I still snuggle back into Primary on Fridays, feeling like a child sheltering under a favourite blanket.

I've made new friends at the new place. My new-favourite-shala-buddy practises right next to me - we share jokes and commiserate over LBH together and she's SO full of awesome. I enjoy being in a room where people support one another and laugh out loud during the funny moments.

But the majority of my shalamates share this common history, having followed DT from her last room. I'm one of a few who came from elsewhere. There are moments when I feel like stranger and wonder if I'll ever really fit in with this crowd.

My practice continues to evolve. Laghu Vajrasana is no longer the FML pose. I can come down to the floor and stay for five (very short) breaths before coming up again. I'm trying to build strength and endurance to stay in the pose longer and come up stronger. I'm also trying to translate the action into the Kapotasana exit.

The leg-behind-head stuff vacillates between 'awesome' and 'agony'. But swinging my legs into Dwi Pada Sirsasana is so natural now, it's hard to believe it ever felt impossible. During my weekly Primary, I regularly Dwi Pada into Supta Kurmasana, lower down, and then do the full exit when I'm done. It's one of the most satisfying moments of my week. :-D

I will try to write here more often. I might take a page from my friend Serene Flavour's book and write shorter posts. I know I'm going to feel like a moving target when I blog about getting new poses, but the reality is, I'm doing Intermediate for real. This is my practice now.

I'm still smarting a bit from the criticism that was lobbed at me when I split Primary (it wasn't the anonymous jabs that stung the most - the real hurt came from people I considered friends). I'm still feeling alienated and wary of the Cybershala these days. I email with a few people and follow a handful of blogs, but I'm not on Twitter much anymore and I've withdrawn into the 'real world' which isn't such a bad thing, actually.

But I've cultivated this web-space with such care and honesty over the years, I'd like to maintain it. So I'll take a stab at posting daily this week and see how it goes..

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The Busy, Dwi Pada and P-Fur Paws

I thought The Busy was going to kill me this week. I'm not done yet, but as of early next week, I'm officially part-time for the summer (I'm teaching a full schedule on Monday). It's funny, my upcoming schedule is full of yoga classes I want to go to, people I want to see, things I want to do, so it doesn't feel very different from the past several months. It's just a different kind of busy. Fun busy!

The weather here has been awesomely erratic. We had an Extreme Heat Alert on Tuesday, but by Thursday morning, it was *freezing* and I needed a coat for my bike ride to the shala. The days have been really nice, though - sunny and mild. I've been going for long walks every day and, since my subway pass expired, I've been biking everywhere.

If I had a ten bucks for every person who's asked me "But doesn't that tighten up your hips!?", I could pay my shala fees for the next two months. Yes, it tightens up my hips a bit, especially during the first few days that I ride. Then, like everything else, my body adjusts to it and I'm fine.

Tuesday was an agonizing LBH day (seriously, it was painful; I reintroduced prep poses) but by Wednesday, it was better and by Thursday, I didn't need to prep - I just moved right into Eka Pada. I've been consistently holding the leg behind my head, hands-free on both sides (I have to support the left leg a tiny bit entering and exiting the forward bend; that's my 'bad' side).

On Thursday, I Dwi Pada'ed all by myself for the first time. It wasn't pretty, but I was able to hold it and lift up (didn't get the bum balance - next time!). These LBH poses are consistently improving.

Also on Thursday, DT observed me for a moment in Laghu Vajrasana, then swooped down and took away my block, the one I had been lowering down to. And *then* she moved the block all the way to the front of my mat, so I couldn't use it. SNEAKY! :-D

I've been working my way down to the lowest level of the block - about 10cm (4 inches). Going to the floor is harder, much harder - that little bit of space makes a huge difference. I kept getting stuck and DT kept rescuing me. All she had to do was place her finger tips on my back ribs to get me to started. Clearly, I have the capacity to do this, I just need to find the action.

Supta Vajrasana is getting better and better. It took me awhile to figure out this pose. DT and I haven't really discussed it a lot, short of some feedback about lifting up from the back ribs and supporting it with my arms. The adjustment is part of the pose and that's the context I'm learning it. I think I may be getting the knack. This week, I noticed that I'm coming up and down more on my own power (rather than hanging onto DT's hands for dear life).

The process has been interesting for me because it's one of my first experiences learning a pose in a Mysore room. I came into Mysore-style already knowing full Primary. Most of the poses of Intermediate are already familiar to me. But now I'm getting into some of the really Astanga-specific poses that I've never worked on before. Supta Vajrasana is one of them. The same can be said of the LBH poses. It's fascinating - and deeply satisfying - to observe myself learning these poses, progressing in them.

I was really looking forward to doing my Primary today. There's a lot of Lolasana in the first part of Primary! The other day, I asked DT if I was doing the whole Lolasana thing right - I don't really feel like I'm making much progress with it. She confirmed that I'm working correctly and encouraged me to continue. It needs six weeks! So, in another month, I'll re-evaluate.

DT and I also chatted about lotusing the legs while inverted. I explained that I was practising this in shoulderstand. She suggested I try it in headstand. For some reason, that sounded harder to me - it made me nervous. Today, after Setu Bandhasana, I came into a tripod headstand near the wall. I surprised myself. Not only was I able to get my legs into a decently tight lotus, but I lowered the lotus to my arms, then lifted up again! It was fun! I repeated it three times and on the third go, I was lifted and lowered my legs over and over again. WEEEEEE! (yes, easily entertained).


And, not so easily entertained, but certainly well-rested: Princess Fur slept through most of the writing of this blog post.

Sometimes, you need to look VERY carefully to spot Fur when she's napping! Awwww, PAWS!

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Look ma! No hands!

I had a very good yoga week, but for some reason I didn't have much to say about it. I was doing a lot, thinking a lot, but I didn't feel like writing.

I glanced through my private practice notes to form a bigger picture and realized that I covered quite a lot of ground over the past week. Here's an overview...

LBH: This week, I started consistently getting Eka Pada Sirsasana on the right side hands-free. Near the end of the week, I was able to come back up from the forward fold without the leg slipping at all. The pose is slowly coming on the stiffer left side and by Thursday, both sides of the pose were hands free. The exit is also getting stronger. Lately, DT has been holding off on the Dwi Pada Sirsasana assist, letting me flail around a bit before coming in at the very last moment to help me get the right leg back. Because my left side is stiffer and that's the leg that goes behind my head first in Dwi Pada, it's a bit tricky. I end up rolling onto my back a lot.

Kapotasana: For awhile, I was taking the traditional entrance into this pose and dropping back to the floor, but it was getting to a point where I felt I wasn't going anywhere with it. This week, DT suggested I go back to working against the wall for Kapo and walk my hands down while trying to deepen the bend/lift in the upper back. I'm working on finding muscular support from below (to help me lift my hips up and forward).

Backbending: I used those fancy, expensive 'Health Bridges' twice daily for almost a month, but wondered if they were really making a difference. So I stopped using them for about two weeks and realised that they really *were* affecting depth of my backbends and my ability to connect with that part of my body, especially the upper back. So I'm using them again and working up to two sessions a day. Mid-week, DT suggested I practice UD with my feet closer together, hip width. I tried this and I like it - I feel a stronger connection to my legs. I shot a State-of-the-Backbend photo after practice on Friday. Given that I wasn't practising Urdhva Dhanurasana for almost four months this winter, it's looking pretty good. I'm nearly back to where I was pre-shoulder-injury.

Headstand: Sirsasana is one of my stronger poses and I deeply enjoy it. I've been trying to hold it longer, but feeling shy about using my iPod alarm at the shala so I'm not sure how long I've been going. DT has hardly adjusted me at all in that pose, but this week, she encouraged me to lift my head off the floor to build more strength in my arms and back. She didn't say why, but I'm thinking this is a good prep for Pinca Mayurasana. She also talked to me about building strength in my neck, alluding to the 'seven deadlies' at the end of Intermediate. That's far, far away for me, but no reason not to get started.

Lolasana: I've been diligently doing as much of this as I can in my practice. On Friday, I filmed my Lolasana to see what it looked like and it was pretty disapointing. I don't seem to be getting any stronger. I'm going to film every Friday to measure my progress.

Other stuff: In the Saturday class, we workshopped Mayurasana a bit, using blocks under the shoulders to come into the pose, trying to get the lift in the legs. It's hard, but I had one absolutely magic moment when everything activated and my legs floated up.

So that's a wrap! Onward to the new yoga week!

Though our spring has been damp and cold, summer is waiting in the wings. It's forecast to be July-hot next week. I only have one more week of my full-time schedule - As of June 7, I drop to part-time. With evenings free, I'm looking forward to doing a second practice on most days. I plan to work on extracurricular stuff that will supplement my morning practice. I'm also adding another weekly vinyasa class with my old teacher HS and maybe an additional hot class.

As my attitude towards my practice has shifted, my goals have shifted too. My main goal for the summer is to build strength. Every week, I'm sore somewhere. The week before last, it was intense in my hamstrings and my core. This week, it was a general soreness around my torso and upper back and my legs were tired. I'm connecting with all these muscles I didn't know I had (or had never communicated with before).

Each time I hit a brick wall in my practice, DT says: 'That's because you're not strong enough.' So for now, I'm focusing on getting 'strong enough' and curious to see what happens when I do.





State-of-the-Backbend, May 27, 2011
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The sun is out...now

Practice was Primary again today. I'm relishing this opportunity to spend quality time with my Primary. The only extracurriculars I'm adding are the LBH poses and I'm making some progress with them.

Yesterday, I immersed myself in the LBH section of Maehle's book and today applied some of his advice for Eka Pada Sirsasana. Result: I'm now able to hold the pose, with hands in prayer (praying, of course, that the legs doesn't slide out from behind my head!) on both sides AND lower into the forward fold without losing my leg.

I might've Dwi Pada'ed myself again too, but DT came over to help. With her adjustment, I lowered to the floor for Supta K and my feet didn't slide down the back of my head to the floor! I kept them there! YAY! I couldn't keep the pose together for the exit, but it's coming.

Outside of practice, I've started lotusing my legs the opposite way (left foot first) so I can get used to it. Yesterday, I noticed that the inside of my left knee was feeling a little bit tweaky. I asked DT about this, showed her how I was coming into it and she told me exactly what I needed to do to keep the pressure off that part of my knee.

I'm still trying, trying, trying to find that elusive opening across my upper chest, lifting those back ribs UP. In my deep backbending against the wall, I'm struggling to straighten my arms. When I ask DT, the answer is always the same: It's not about flexibility, it's about strength and alignment. In this case, I'm just not grasping the action needed to straighten my arms.

*Sigh* I remember when I first started practising, yoga was about putting a foot here, an arm there and YAY! A pose! Now, it's more about engaging this thing and pushing inward while simultaneously pushing outward and engaging something while releasing the adjacent thing and externally rotating this while internally rotating that and THEN creating length in another place while restraining other parts that are just *dying* to jut out. And in this roundabout way, finally building the action required to do the thing you actually wanted to do.

*braincrash*

It never gets any easier because yoga is this all-you-can-eat buffet of progressively more complicated skill sets. After 16 years of this stuff, I *still* feel like a beginner - in part because I've been fortunate enough to study with teachers who keep it all fresh for me by constantly raising the bar. There's always a new layer to explore. It's exciting!

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News flash: the sun is shining, intermittently, but shining. It was shining yesterday too - for five minutes. Such a shame it's been so lousy out - I'm missing the peak 'Pretty Flower Season'. Instead of hunkering down under an electric blanket, I *should* be walking around the city, smelling brightly coloured growing things.

Last night, as I was coming in from work, I spotted some practically new freebie patio furniture sitting on the loading dock. I grabbed two chairs and a table and I've set up a nice little garden area on my balcony. I have a feeling it will become my new-favourite-place as soon as the weather warms up. All I need now is a fake grass carpet and I'll be set! In the elevator this afternoon, I had a chance to thank the neighbour who gave the stuff away (he had literally just set it out when I nabbed it). He made my day, I made his!


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Found Hamstrings & The Raccoon Loaf

It was 7C this morning when I jumped on my bike to ride to the shala. For those of you who dream in Fahrenheit, that's the low 40s. My landlord turned off the building heat because, hey, it's mid-May and it's *supposed* to be warm so I've been running my old heater in the apartment - the noisy one. My oil heater now lives at the shala so I can better fly my freak flag as the 'the one who's so hard-core, she brings her own HEATER.'

Anyway, it's cold and it's rainy and practice was difficult this morning. Everything felt slightly 'off.' DT has been leaving me to stew in my own private Idaho in the LBH poses. It's not going so badly. On a good day, my legs stay put in Eka Pada Sirsasana but I need to grab my foot coming down into the forward bend. The leg always pops out during the exit. Dwi Pada is only doable if I can lean into a wall. This pose always makes me think of Weebles. Remember Weebles? They wobble but they don't fall down? I need to be a Weeble.

DT descended as I was wiggling into the first side of Eka Pada today and I received deep adjustments on both sides and a few tips to help me do it myself. My LBH poses *are* getting deeper. I noticed today that with the help, I could actually find some extension in my torso, especially on the right side. I felt like I was sitting up straight instead of curled forward like a gargoyle.

And there's *good* news! My hamstrings are sore, really sore. This afternoon, I sat down on a bench in the subway station and made a surprised 'OOF!' sound when my tender hammies touched down. Over the weekend, DT and I were messaging back and forth. I wrote: "You'll be happy to know that my hamstring hurt." She messaged back: "Yes, that means you're using them." Yay!

I'm used to my quadraceps being sore, but not my hamstrings. It feels backward!

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In other news, our shala has a mascot! A raccoon! Actually, the raccoons have been around for years. I remember seeing them back when Shala Central was at this location. They like to hang out on the green roof right outside our windows.

When we arrived for practice on Sunday, it was wet and miserable out. A raccoon had found shelter, curled into a furry ball between the air conditioning unit and the window in what can only be described as a 'raccoon loaf'. Cat owners will know exactly what I'm talking about! When I walked to the corner to unroll my mat, he kind of checked me out, then curled back up into his loaf.

(by the way, it's probably *not* a good idea to Google the term 'raccoon loaf'. I thought MY freak flag was flying high. Eek!)

As the room filled up, the raccoon finally freaked out and left. I lowered the blind to give him some privacy (after I noticed that he was cautiously peering around the corner at me as I was coming into upward dog), but he didn't come back.

A shalamate caught this photo of him, sleepy and slightly disoriented. He looks exactly like a small child groggily waking up from his nap, which makes perfect sense because that's exactly what he was doing! Aw!!!! Cute!


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Flying Pigs, Flying Partridges

I'm starting to feel very settled into the new shala. I feel like my new teacher has become familiar with my practice and is prioritizing adjustments to help me learn. I feel comfortable with the people practising around me. I've developed a new routine and getting up early doesn't feel like torture anymore.

I'm finding SO much joy in having shalamates again! Because talking is allowed in this shala, there's more noise, but also more laughter. There's a genuine sense of connection and fun in the room. This was rare in the last shala I regularly practised at, but it's become common in this one and I like it!

Because the shala is new, we've all had a role in creating its 'culture'. Of course the teacher sets the tone and DT has set a nice one. More than one shalamate has described the atmosphere of this room as very nuturing, almost 'motherly' (in the best sense of the word). I look forward to going there. The presence of my shalamates and their bright energy makes the difficult parts of my practice feel more do-able.

I think DT has done a good job of supporting the wide variety of practitioners who have walked in her door. Diverse practices are welcome, but she's very respectful of those of us who are more traditional. She makes suggestions, but she never pushes. More than once, I've sensed a 'thought bubble' over her head that read: "Gee, this pose could really use a prop!" But I rarely use props, and she always asks before she uses them with me.

During my first days, I had a little bit of fun adding and changing poses in my practice just because I *could*. There was more than a little bit of rebellion at work there, I suspect. ;-) Once the novelty wore off, I started adding poses more strategically. Although I came in the door determined to retain my traditional practice, I've definitely become more open as time has passed.

During the first week, I added Supta Virasana as a preparation for Bhekasana. I lost that pose during my shoulder injury and needed to lengthen my quads. It worked - I'm able to do the pose now and DT has started giving me the adjustment to go deeper.

My adventures with the Dwi Pada entrance into Supta K have been fun, but sometimes difficult. Early last week, it occurred to me that it might be easier to do Dwi Pada Sirsasana if I did a little bit of Eka Pada Sirsasana *first*.

DT spotted the change, and the next day, she adjusted me deeper on each side and helped me hold for five breaths. Then she encouraged me to do the forward fold and after I came up from that, she helped me do this thing where I lift my extended leg and try to push up onto my hands. I wasn't sure what was up with that, but it turns out that it's Chakorasana from the third series.


Photo credit: ashtangahyoga.info

Cool! Oddly enough, now that I kind of know what it looks like, I'll probably have an easier time doing it. I looked up the English translation. According to Matthew Sweeney, it's the 'Patridge Posture'. Not to be confused with the 'Patridge Family' (though that DIDN'T stop me from scouring the internet for photos of the Partidge Family doing yoga. No dice.)


So LBH poses are now a daily part of my practice and I love them and hate them simultaneously. I kind of dread Supta K now, but once I'm there, it's exciting and challenging, developing new skills for my body to do this new thing.

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