Hatha

I'm drinking hot chai to revive myself. I've felt exhausted all morning. I felt sleepy during my asana practice and I was falling asleep during my meditation session. And yes, I'm getting plenty of sleep. I might be fighting off the edge of a teeny-tiny cold though. I've been taking ColdFX and using the neti pot twice a day to fight it off. My throat was scratchy yesterday, but fine today. Now I just have a sniffle.

Need to wake up. I have a long day ahead and four classes to teach!

I did something weird to my back and I'm going to blame it on hockey - I took a hard fall halfway through the second period (tripping, but the ref didn't call it). I'm pretty sure it's just muscular because I was fine on Tuesday (muscular aches usually show up 48 hours after the exertion). By late yesterday, I was very sore.

Lattisimus dorsi, maybe? My lower torso feels achy when I twist. I took an easy Hatha practice today, starting with 10 Surya Namaskar Classic and moving on to Gentle Hatha Flow #1, 20 minutes with Jackie.

This is a nice, easy-going practice and was exactly what I needed today. With the sun salutations, I practiced for 30 minutes (and warmed up a bit). I like the way Jackie keeps the body moving in this flow without introducing too much effort. Lots of hamstring work. This is one of the free classes on the site.

Astanga

I can't remember the last opportunity I had to sleep in, but this morning did look promising! I settled into bed last night feeling happy about the prospect. Too bad I woke up at 6:30 a.m. Argh! I tossed and turned for a while, but it wasn't worth fighting. I went ahead and got up.

I had time to do my practice, so I that's what I did. Ultimately, I'm glad it worked out this way. I was able to come home after teaching my morning class and eat buttermilk pancakes and read a good book (while the rain poured down outside, what's up with this *weather*?!)

Not the best Primary Series I've ever churned out, but I got through it. My monkey mind was having a party. I was having a deep and interesting conversation with myself that had nothing at all to do with yoga. I'll bet that's never happened to any of you, has it? ;-)

I was sweating buckets. That's one thing this constant rain is good for. The humidity is high, my apartment feels like a steamroom. Please don't read this as a complaint - I love it! I wish my apartment felt like this in the winter. 'Getting my heat up' during practice was not a problem.

The Pain of the Week has exited right my shoulder and I wasn't sure where it would pop up next. In Urdhva Muhka Paschimottanasana this morning, I noticed a weird tightness in my mid back. I take any kind of back pain very, very seriously, so I spent 10 minutes laying on the Acuball before continuing on to closing sequence. The tightness dissipated and I felt okay in the closing sequence. Even shoulderstand felt good (Supta Konasana was feeling very yucky earlier).

My schedule is weird tomorrow so the challenge will be getting a practice in at all. I would like to do my full practice, but I may need to do a shorter vinyasa sequence. Stay tuned!