Anusara

This was one of those days that I really should have done my practice first thing in the morning, and I regretted that I didn't.

I slept in this morning. It was so much more fun to laze around talking and drinking coffee (a rare indulgence for me) than hop on the mat. Then I met up at noon with a good friend of mine for Thai food (my former-favourite Thai place has really gone downhill - the Pad Thai was *awful*) and ice cream (Greg's - a bowl full of Mocha! Delicious and SO not CR...).

Unfortunately, due to some personal circumstances, I had a tense afternoon. I was feeling down and very sorry for myself. I completely forgot about practising until late and unrolled my mat reluctantly.

I did a half-hearted Anusara practice and to my surprise, it really did make me feel better. I was in a better frame of mind as I drifted off to sleep shortly after.

Astanga

I realised this morning that it's been over a week since I did an Astanga practice. So that's what I did, using the little application I've been using on my iPod to time the poses.

Before I started, I edited 'Routine', modifying the sequence I input the other day and fine tuning it. I brought all the holds down to 30 seconds, added extra steps so that two sides of Utthita Trikonasana, etc. were timed separately. I tried it out and though it worked very well, I realised that I didn’t have sufficient transition time between poses, especially in the seated poses, since I was doing vinyasa. I turned on the 'pause between steps' setting, but this really broke my flow.

I need to either add transitions between poses, bump up the time on the poses to include transition/vinyasa or persuade the developer to add the option to pause after each step rather than all-or-none (I've emailed him - I'm sure I'm not the first person to request this feature). I will mull this and revisit.

My noon class was so much fun that I realised that I felt like doing yoga again in the afternoon. This almost never happens, but happily, I had a children's yoga class to teach in the afternoon. I took my high energy to class and we worked on Urdhva Dhanurasana, dropbacks, Ustrasana, handstands and Supta Kurmasana.

I haven't done Supta Kurmasana in months, but I bound on the first try...then couldn't bind on subsequent tries. Oh well...need to open those shoulders, and hips and back and...

It was great fun and I left energised and exhausted, simultaneously. So I went and bought a burrito and BB's. :-)

Anusara

I'm loving the new set-up of my apartment. I watched an old episode of Law and Order SVU from the bed last night and I could actually *see* the television for a change (it used to live waaaay across the room). And I installed a light over the bed for optimal pre-sleep reading enjoyment.

I *adore* my little window seat. I've always wanted one. Sure it's a bit manufactured, but I can sit and watch the sun rise from this spot in the morning. And I had tea at my tiny kitchen table this morning.

Living in such a tiny space is something I've grown accustomed to and I'm skilled at using the square footage of have in the most efficient possible way. But I've raised the bar this time - my apartment has never been so functional. I guess I'll stay here for another couple years ;-)

I woke this morning determined to do my practice before anything else. I felt dance-y, so I did a half-hour of Journey Dance (moving through my now-larger space with delight), then a half-hour of Anusara. I was soaked in sweat by the time I finished.

I'm finding myself drawn back into Anusara lately, spontaneously doing handstands around the apartment, engaging in more 'voluntary' backbending. ;-) It's interesting how a daily practice allows me to meander down these paths - dance, difference styles of yoga. Some days, it feels like sheer drudgery, but on others, it's like play.

Anusara

This morning, I caught the furniture rearranging bug. I thought it might be neat to move my huge purple-heart-n-cherry hope chest over by the west window to create a window seat/reading nook. But it didn't make sense to do that if the reading nook would be right beside the bed and what about the glare problem I've been dealing with on my computer screen and T.V.? Wouldn't it make sense to move all that stuff to the sides of the room so I could type/watch junk T.V. glare-free.

And so on and so on...

By mid-morning my 250 square foot city apartment was chaos: furniture scattered, wireless router unplugged, phone relocated, art taken down from the walls. Space, as you can imagine, is at a premium when you live in a glorified closet (at university, I stayed in more spacious dorm rooms). Also, I needed to insure the optimal amount of space to do yoga.

I ended up moving the bed to a side of the room it had never before occupied. I relocated the wall unit to position the television at an optimal non-glare angle and my desk is perpendicular to the window to prevent glare on my computer screen. And I have a window seat! And (bonus!) a little meditation nook! And (bonus!) a small dining area off the kitchen. Right now, I'm eating off a T.V. tray but a trip to Ikea for a small table may be in my future.

Imagine, eating off a table like a civilized human being! I feel reincarnated...

In the course of this shuffling, I unearthed more dog-sized dust bunnies than I care to admit. The whole apartment is still floating in a cloud of dust motes as I type, but I washed the floor and did yoga in my new larger-than-ever yoga-space (how did I managed to find more floor in this apartment? how?!).

I'm still rockin' the Routine application on my iPod Touch. This time, I set up an intense half-hour Anusara sequence. It was terrifically fun. :-)

I laid over my bolster for a full minute for launching into Urdhva Dhanurasana. It really does seem to help.

Now I'd better make sure my bed actually folds out and doesn't collide with the desk. Wish me luck!

Astanga

My Geeky Adventures continued today with the Routine app on my iPod.

I sat down and enjoyed 20 geeky minutes of entering my modified Swenson Short Form, including my custom added poses (technology makes me so happy!). But I completely forgot to add different sides for poses like Utthita Trikonasana, so it didn't work very well in practice. I need to go back and edit the sequence and also take the holds down to 30 seconds for each pose.

But in theory, it's terrific!

I'm back to pondering the holds in my poses and thinking that for some of them, I may increase the hold to 1 minute. While waiting to chat with Natasha Rizopoulos at the Yoga Show, I overheard her say that she's moved toward longer holds (8-10 breaths) even in the context of an Astanga practice.

Because I'm on the mat daily, I've found the space to fine tune my practice in ways I wouldn't have imagined even last year. Experimenting helps to keep me engaged and it's fun!

Yin

I'm having a total Yoga Geek moment with my iPod Touch.

First of all, let me say about the Touch: I've never had as much fun with any gadget as I've had with this one. Ever. It's awesome. I bought it at Christmas and it's been nothing but fun since then. My life pretty much revolves around it: music (I love music and use it mainly as an MP3 player), apps (for general entertainment) GTD (for tracking goals and tasks), games (sometimes; I'm not a big game player but I have a few favourites).

So it was only a matter of time before I found a way to merge my Yoga obsession with my iPod Touch obsession. I tried out the various 'yoga apps' that I could find for free and none of them inspired any excitement. I don't need to be shown what Triangle Pose looks like and I don't really care to do someone else's idea of a perfect Hatha sequence (boring!). Mainly, I wanted a way to create my own sequences and time them.

I found my app! It's called 'Routine' and is intended for multi-use: sports, GTD, meditation, interval training, whatever. I discovered it when I realised that the countdown timer on my Touch didn't count down to seconds. 'Routine' allows countdown to seconds (so I can hold poses for a minute and a half, ie: 90 seconds), but it also allows the creation of custom yoga sequences with different hold times for each pose. This is handy for those of us who don't need to be told what a pose looks like, we just need it timed.

This afternoon, I quickly created a 31 minute Yin Yoga sequence that looks like this (poses mostly in English just to make things easy):
Lay over blocks, medium height - 90 sec
Lay over blocks, low height - 90 sec
Downward Dog - 90 sec
Deep lunge right side - 60 sec
Deep lunge left side - 60 sec
Supta Padangusthasana right side, leg up - 90 sec
Supta Padangusthasana right side, leg to side - 90 sec
Supta Padangusthasana left side, leg up - 90 sec
Supta Padangusthasana left side, leg to side - 90 sec
Downward Dog - 60 sec
Pigeon right side - 90 sec
Pigeon left side - 90 sec
Downward dog - 60 sec
Modified Tortoise w/ block - 90 sec
Reclined Hero - 60 sec
Child's Pose - 90 sec
Supine twist right - 90 sec
Supine twist left - 90 sec
Savasana - 5 minutes

The application prompts you with a 'ding' after each hold is complete (you can disable this feature if you just want to flow through it - I will do this for Vinyasa/Astanga sequences).

I just finished doing the Yin sequence above and the application worked great! I can't wait to create some more sequences. This is a great tool to keep me on track for days when I'm distracted or want to hold poses for longer periods. Or I just want to geek out with my iPod and do some magical geeky yoga.