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.