Tentative

After two weeks of no asana whatsoever, I gingerly inched my way through primary this morning. No half lotus on the right. Just lots of janu a. Awful.

Krouchasana, and Now My Other Knee is Sproinged

I can bind Pasasana on both sides with little effort on decent to good days, so Tim suggested Krounchasana. My femurs hate internal rotation. I make a crummy heron.

In more uplifting news I am regularly piking to handstand before lowering into bakasana after utkatasana. Circus, maybe, but it certainly makes virabadrasana challenging again! 

A few weeks ago my dogs did me the favor of spraining my knee when they lunged at something during a walk. The one is 55lbs of shepherd; the new dog is 85 pounds of American Bulldog (read: strong for his size). Garbha Pindasana exacerbated the problem, and it's been a frustrating few weeks since. Yesterday I got too enthusiastic and did every pose in Primary. Today's practice was incredibly painful and limited. More rest.

Pasasana

I asked Tim when I could start adding poses last Friday. He suggested I do Pasasana today. So I did. Twice.

I need to eat less.

How To Be A Hotshot Yoga Teacher

How to be a hotshot yoga teacher:

1.) Be hot. Wear booty shorts and/or a sexy top.

2.) Teach flattering asanas - that are easy but look hard.

3.) Make lots of instructional youtube videos. Don't worry if you can't actually do the pose you're attempting to teach correctly.

4.) Write a blog, preferably on Elephant Journal, wherein you convince your readership that you are happier, better adjusted, prettier, and generally a superior specimen of the human race compared to them. This is best done via new-age platitudes.

5.) Refer, excessively, to yourself as 'a yoga teacher' or a 'teacher'. Extra points if you also market yourself as a life coach.

Voila!

4:15am

I haven't been waking up early, until a friend shamed me into practicing before work today, despite my 8am meeting.

And boom - up at 4:20, at the shala at 6am, full Primary by 7:30, and only a few minutes late to my meeting.

There is something special about early mornings. The more I practice the more I leave prep out of things and let Primary do its thing to me, though I must admit to a eka pada rajakapotasana before ardha baddha padmottanasana. Sometimes necessary, always nice. That first half lotus is always brutal, particularly for my left, ex-injured, stiff knee.

I love yoga. There's that initial energy well to get out of, but once over the hump (usually after the suryas) it's so nice. And if I put extra energy into backbends, I get that energy back out (until about 3pm).

Ok, time for bed - I was up at 4:15ish, did full Primary, then work, then teaching, then dog walk, now I'm tired. Moon day tomorrow! I'm sure I'll be grumpy.

8/10/2013

If you complain about doing laundry, try living having a broken washer for a week before the new one arrives. You will be thrilled to do laundry again. Perks of buying an older house!

Having moved two months ago, my routines are finally settling back into something resembling reasonableness. I'm now practicing about an hour later than I used to, since I don't/can't go home over lunch to walk the dogs. So I'm trying to get to Tim's at 6:45 and finishing by 8:30 or so.

Practice recently has been wonderful. My hips and ankles have been speaking to me, so the magic of the hip rotational and forward folds of Primary have been greatly emphasized. For someone arbha baddha paschimo encapsulates the gist of Primary for me. I love that pose on a good day.

Garbha is back when I'm sweaty enough (with so much arm and leg hair, a large amount of sweat is necessary). Backbends are kicking ass - I'm coming up with my heels barely lifting at all, and the motion is more static and controlled overall.

Kukkutasana remains to be accomplished, however.

Four Months

I successfully garbhaed this morning. FOUR MONTHS to get padmasana back to someplace reasonable. Jesus.