Astanga

Aaaaand Day 5 of 6. I was up at 4:30, on the mat by 5:30, finished by 7:25 and out the door by 8. Life is moving too fast! This week just blew by and I feel like I spent all of it teaching, practising, eating, sleeping. Repeat.

Well, that and errands, and hand laundry.

And caring for Princess Fur. Even at my busiest, I make time for cuddles, playtime and long walks with my dog. It's not Fur's fault that I'm over scheduled.

Yes, I like all of these things and they make me happy. But I haven't been making time for ME. Of course, I do my practice and meditate every day, but I'm missing that quiet, introspective time needed to 'process'. Without it, I get loopy, discontented and stir-crazy.

That's where I am right now. So far, with the exception of a few angsty blurts on Twitter, I've managed to hold my shit together pretty well, but I'm feeling a bit rootless and uncertain again. I'm having a crisis of confidence in both my practice and my teaching (ironically, I've had incredibly positive feedback on my teaching this week, so I really need to stop being quite so hard on myself).

I think I just need some rest, so that's first on the agenda (my classes cancelled tonight, so I can go to bed early). Tomorrow morning, I'll make a bit of time to sit and drink tea in the window seat, watch the sun rise, do some reading, maybe a bit of writing, and thinking.

My morning yoga routine hasn't felt long or difficult lately, but it *has* been a tad bit lonely. I miss the sound and energy of people around me as I practice, so tomorrow I'm heading up to the Shala North Mysore room to visit DR in the late morning. I've been jonesing for a Prasarita C adjustment. If I'm lucky, I may get Supta Kurmasana too. And a good squish.

And after I've done these three things, I'll re-evaluate how I'm feeling and see if the itch has been scratched.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Astanga

Uh oh. I fear a ‘bad yoga week’ may be in the works.

I had a VERY angsty, distracted, unhappy practice this morning. I can’t put a finger why, though. I was definitely feeling lethargic and my back was tweaky (I’m blaming *that* on the 10 hours of sleep I had last night. Seriously! TEN HOURS!! I never marathon sleep like that! Intermediate series is driving me into a coma!)

Also: Backbending was *dire*.

Often when I have a bad practice, I can’t get it out of my head, so I’ll think through it pose by pose, trying to troubleshoot. Seen from this lens, my practice was actually pretty good. I was doing all the stuff I usually do, binding to wrist in all my Marichyasanas, binding and crossing ankles in Supta K. Pasasana had a solid bind to fingers (my recent ‘Twisting Epiphany ‘has made this pose easy-peasy, except for the heels part, which I’m still working on).

I had my best Bhujapidasana *ever* (this silly pose is becoming one of my favourites!): smooth controlled decent to the floor, to my chin. Yay! Plus, I nailed the Bakasana exit! Lately, I’ve been pushing into my hands, focusing on using my bandhas and trying to swing both legs back at the same time. This worked the first time I tried it, but it’s been sketchy ever since.

The video clip of Kino teaching the transition has been floating around the AstangaBlogosphere again. I reviewed it and noticed that Kino suggests leaning to one side to bring one leg around and then the other side and then *staying* with the Bakasana, even if it isn’t a ‘pretty Bakasana’ (and mine never are). This morning I combined my method with her one-leg-at-a-time tip and it totally worked for me!

So, why so glum? Backbending. Stupid, impossible backbending! Urdhva Dhanurasana was uncomfortable, which should have been a warning. Then dropbacks were horrible. I did them - just three of them - but with many last-second-bailouts and angsty fussing. I nearly wimped out completely - the only thing that kept me going was a firm ‘reminder-to-self’ that this stuff isn’t ‘optional’ just because I’m practising at home.

I also tried to stand up three times (on the futon) and ended up collapsing into a Pity Puddle (also on the futon). Thank God for the futon, or I’d probably have a concussion!

I can’t remember the last time I had this much trouble with backbending. Is it the two-day vacation I took from dropping back? The avocado sushi I ate on Friday? Too many vegan cookies on Saturday? Too much sleep? It’s a mystery. I just hope it’s not one that plagues me for the rest of the week.

I didn’t get a State-of-the-Backbend photo last week. I put it off, thinking I could just take one today. Ha, ha!

So...this is what my backbend looks like when I’m angsty, uncomfortable and near tears.

It looks almost *exactly* like last week’s backbend.

I know there’s a lesson here someplace, but I’m too busy stuffing my face with peach muffins to look for it.

Tomorrow is another day!

Astanga

Okay, confession time: I’ve not been having an easy time with my new, longer practice and I haven’t been adjusting very well to the realities of a home practice. If I were to choose three words to describe my practice at the moment, they would be: Long. Difficult. Lonely.

I kind of muddled through for the the first week-and-a-bit, limping along forlornly, trying to keep a brave face. Then circumstances rescued me by providing brilliant and entirely valid excuses not to be on the mat (Moon Day! Lady’s Holiday!).

But all valid excuses eventually come to an end.

On Saturday, I happily did a led Primary, for fun. But as I faced a return to my longdifficultlonely Primary+Intermediate practice on Sunday, I faltered. And my ever-helpful Brain lobbed onto a great alternative: Shala Central’s monthly led Primary! It was scheduled for this Sunday. I could go as a drop-in student! I absolutely *love* the led Primary class at the Shala. I could visit my friends! I could do a warm, cozy safe (easy!) Primary Series practice surrounded by shalamates and led by a Sanskrit count. I could geek out over Astanga during the after-class discussion. And eat muffins!

Seriously, who wouldn’t want to do this? Particularly when the alternative is a difficult 2-hour-plus practice, alone in a quiet apartment, punctuated by endless backbends and humiliating attempts to stand up from them.

I was all ready to go, bolstered by a million reasons this was SUCH a good idea. Then I stepped back and did a reality check. And I realised the *only* reason I wanted to go to led Primary at the Shala was to avoid my longdifficultlonely practice at home.

And that’s not a very good reason.

So, in the end, I decided to stay home, put on my Big Girl Ashtangi Pants, and do my practice.

Not that it wasn’t a struggle. I woke to the 5:30 alarm, remembered my practice, rolled over and went back to sleep. Woke again, remembered again, avoided again and again until 7, when I couldn’t put it off any longer. I took a salt bath, heated up the apartment, unrolled my mat and started my practice.

And you know what? It wasn’t THAT bad. In fact, I had a really nice practice.

Last week, I had a couple breakthroughs which seem to be sticking around so I’ll mention them:

- Very smooth and controlled lotus jumpbacks. I’m still doing that cheaty Mayurasana thing with my arms, but now I can lift up and hold the lotus there before the jumpback.

- Successful exit from Kurmasana to Bakasana and jumpback! No toe-to-floor-cheats! The key to this seems to be pushing down through my hands as I swing both feet around at the same time. It’s not a pretty Bakasana, but it’s solid enough for the jumpback. (I’m still not nailing the exit from Bhujapidasana because my legs are not far enough up my shoulders).

And I had two HUGE breakthroughs in today’s practice.

In Laghu Vajrasana, I’ve been lowering my head to a block, set on end - vertically - then coming back up. I do this over and over again until I’m tuckered - usually 10-15 repetitions. Today, lowering to the vertical block was too easy-peasy so I set the block horizontally and tried that a few times. That was pretty easy-peasy too, so I laid the block on its side and tried that.

Okay, that wasn’t *exactly* easy-peasy, but it was still do-able! I lowered and came up several times until the movement felt smooth and controlled. Skippetty’s advice (for standing from a backend, actually, but it’s well-applied to Laghu), ‘lifting from the belly button’ has been really helpful to me. I find it’s better if I just pretend that I have no solid body above my mid-torso, then work on bringing my hips and belly forward. As I come up, I allow my chest/shoulders/head to roll up floppy-ragdoll-style.

Since it was going so well, I decided to raise the bar even further. I looked down at the block, looked at the floor and thought, “Hey, why not?!” I shoved the block aside and tried lowering my head all the way to FLOOR. And I came back up!! It was challenging, but with a big inhale it was do-able. I repeated this a few times. Yay!

Here’s where I raised the bar a little bit *too* far. I wondered if I could lower my head to the floor, then *hold it* there for a couple breaths and come back up again. Nope! Ha, ha! I ended up collapsing into Supta Virasana, then laughing as I struggled to sit back up.

But still, this is a LOT of progress in this pose!

Then I worked on backbends. *sigh*

I did three warm-up Urdhva Dhanurasana from the floor, bringing my head to the floor for a one breath rest in between each. In these warmups, I focus on keeping the weight in my heels while relaxing the gluteals and breathing (!). The biggest challenge seems to be straightening the arms. As soon as I think about my legs, I forget about my arms. I also walked my hands in a bit each time to deepen the backend.

Next, I started playing around with hangbacks and dropping back to the wall. I placed two cork blocks at the wall, set vertically, and walked my hands down the wall to the blocks. I thought this little bit of height might help me stand up. Nope. No dice. I didn’t feel stable.

While reading through Grimmly’s notes about standing up/ dropping back, I recalled that he used his sofa as a prop. I decided to drop back to the futon and try standing up from there. The futon gives me about 30 centimetres of height.

I dropped back to the edge of the futon very easily, then rocked my hips forward a few times. It felt awkward. I decided to approach the action *exactly* as I do Laghu Vajrasana. So I exhaled completely, pushed my hips forward and applied Skippetty’s advice about ‘lifting from the belly button’. I kept my attention on my hips and belly, tried to relax my head and shoulders, ignore the fact that I have arms (for some reason, the arms always throw me off).

Then I rocked forward and stood up! It happened so smoothly, I thought it was a fluke! So I dropped back again. I stood up again. I did this about 8 times. I just couldn’t believe I was standing up from *anything* resembling a backbend! But I was!!! I was doing it!

Keep in mind, though, my hands were 30 centimetres from the floor. But it’s a good start!

From here, I can work on developing muscle memory for the action and gradually move to a point closer to the floor (dropping to the futon frame will be my next goal). I’ve been through this whole song-and-dance with dropbacks. It’s all a matter of taking baby steps. I can do this!!!

Funny aside: My arms *really* do take on a life of their own when I’m standing up, especially since I’m pointedly ignoring them. I’m not sure what they were doing the first time I stood because I was so excited that it actually happened. But the second time, they sort of flapped around like Mermaid Arms. The next three times, they did this whirly thing like airplane propellers (as if THAT’S going to bring me to standing *eyeroll*). After that, they were doing a combination of propeller-hands and jazz-hands.

Sheesh! I’m going to have to regain control of my crazy arms if I ever want to stand up at a shala! I’m pretty sure jazz-hands aren’t part of Astanga yoga! I’ll never hear the end of it! ;-)