Progress

1.) Padmasana has arrived after nearly four years. Uth Plutih is fun!

 2.) Marichyasana D is coming - the bind without any external help is progressing.

 3.) Urdhva Dhanurasana: not only can I very consistently stand up without staggering across the room, I managed to drop back (in a very controlled fashion, to my great surprise) on Friday. Three times. I repeated the performance yesterday in a led Primary class, so it's not completely a fluke. Tips, tricks? Can't think of one. I hung back for a long as possible before pushing against the wall to come back up several times. Then, reaching to the wall seemed further than reaching down to the floor.

 Supta Kurmasana: after losing a few pounds and teacher training, I can bind the hands and move the soles of my feet together every day. Exit happening, too.

 Overall, Primary is becoming more fun and less work.

Last week I also confirmed that drinking too much coffee before pranayama leads to utter failure. If your heart is beating like a drum retentions become completely untenable. Further reflections: curious how yoga is portrayed in Western culture as peaceful, graceful, love, happiness, and a frosted cupcake. But in practice it always feels sweaty, painful, and hard. Elements of grace and levity, but the practice seems to teach the real lessons when it pushes your nose up against the wall.

 Tim might be on to something: "If Anusara is the yoga of Yes, then Ashtanga is the yoga of No".

Adventures in Pranayama

During TT Tim offers and encourages pranayama every morning. People dropped out with time, but I managed to show up every morning; the immersion was worth it.

Interesting things happen during retention, particularly during exhale retentions. If I can convince myself to stay calm, avoiding muscular contraction (trembling/panicking) an interesting settling sensation results - like a handful of sand sinking to the sea floor. Of course, if I can't avoid muscular effort everything goes straight to hell. Violent inhalation results. Preliminary impressions revolved about the lack of mental wandering, too focused on slowing down the breathing cycle, matching the retentions, the sensations of switching nostrils, etc. 

When Tim came back from Europe I went to the pranayama session before Primary on Tuesday, and I realized why the sessions during TT seemed so approachable - Tim was giving us little baby retentions. I managed to get by breaking the count only twice. Whoa. It's tough to get three hours in the morning for both pranayama AND a full practice, though I'd love to do this daily.

Primary after pranayama was entertaining. Sitting on the floor cross-legged for an hour obviously did good things to my hips. My still-sore lower back, not so much. The Chalisa after practice was a nice treat, though the 70 minute commute to work afterwards wasn't.

I miss the immersion of TT. I also miss the army of personal adjusters. The training has been instrumental in my practice.

Finally, I weaseled my way into teaching an Intro class at the studio where I started my practice. First experience teaching. People said nice and flattering things afterwards. We will see where this goes.

Mysore Primary was fun this morning. Progress is happening: padmasana, binding hands without help in Supta Kurmasana, head on the floor for all the Prasaritas, exiting from Bujapidasana and Supta K, etc, etc blah blah blah. Shoulder still gets sore if I get too enthusiastic, lower back doesn't like sitting at work all day. Works in progress.

Old Skool

Killing it.

Check it out - Eddie has hair!

I need to get some of those shorts. Epic. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUgtMaAZzW0