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.

I would have slept in this moon day

but the dogs decided to have a tap-dance party on my bed at 5am. So I got up.

Man, do I ever feel out of whack on moon days.

That Was Painful!

After nice Primaries Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, with my knee behaving and Padmasana coming back, Mysore this morning was absolutely brutal. Stiff, tired, sore, and a short practice trying to get to my 8am meeting, which I missed due to traffic on the 5.

Some days you're the hammer, some days you're the nail.

At least my knee is behaving itself and is less stiff. Pre-practice stretching helps a lot.

I remind myself not to get discouraged, practice grows slowly.

Knee, Rehab, Etc

Exactly a month ago I tried to rock up into Kukkutasana. Then again, and my knee popped. And hurt.

I finished practice, taught that evening, and the next morning couldn't walk does the stairs. I was convinced that I would be off practice for three months. I iced the shit out of the knee, and was astonished that it felt significantly better the next day. And the day after that.

One month later, I have been back to daily practice, and the only lingering effects are residual stiffness in the half lotus postures, and my padmasana is coming back very slowly and painfully. In the context of Primary, that means everything but Garbha, Kukkutasana, and Baddha Padmasana is there.

Phew!

It's not fun being viscerally reminded of how much MaryD hurt back when I was learning it. Note to self: be more careful.

Confluence Learnings: Does Your Shoulder Hurt?

Try widening your hands in chatturanga. Leah Nicole's little tip just totally transformed my chatturanga, adho mukha svasana, etc.

Chad Herst on Tradition:  http://www.herstwellness.com/2011/09/the-so-called-tradition-of-ashtanga.html

It seems the most fundamental question of the practice is: Does It Work*? And it seems that this question isn't discussed that often.


* exercise left to the reader: define 'work'. 

1.) Ashtanga is healing to the body? I call B.S. Yes, some people find their practice to fix stuff that's wrong with them. And yes, my lower back no longer aches. My tight painful hunched back is fixed by sarvangasana. But I can't shake the idea that the further you get the less therapeutic Ashtanga becomes. My perspective, of course, coming from a young, healthy-to-begin-with man. 

I see some dedicated Ashtangis who need to eat a damn sandwich. There is nothing healing about anorexia. 

2.) Ashtanga is healing to the mind? This feels a little more honest. Practice makes my mind shut up, for one, and it makes me happier. I'm a grumpy little ass on moon days. 

3.) Ashtanga as personal transformation. Transforming from what into what? Are we better people for practicing? Are we nicer, kinder, gentler? Maybe, I think results may vary. 

4.) Ashtanga as cultivation. As Tim noted at the Confluence, "Self discipline breeds self confidence". I like this one a whole lot. Learning what you can do, whether it's getting up at 4:30am every day, or sticking your feet behind your head, can do wonders to a person's outlook on life. You learn that committing reaps rewards. I can't say that this has wrought massive changes in my life, but it does in others'. 

5.) Ashtanga as social group. This one's potent. People like belonging to things. Ashtanga breeds cliques that tend to be at least reasonably accepting as long as you're there every day.

I feel like I never hear people talking about WHY they practice, what they get out of it. I really liked hearing each of the Confluence teachers summing up in so many words: "I practice because I love it". 

This supposed to be fun on some level. Beautiful, powerful, deeply satisfying? I'm ok with those.

Arms Down

In Kurmasana yesterday - a personal first.

Garbha is happening, too, on a semi-regular basis.

Ten consecutive days of practice thanks to the Confluence. Good things happening.

The Confluence was brilliant, again.

Today I can no longer ignore this cold. Maybe practice?

Unhappy Practice and Garbha Success

Well, in today's Led Primary I managed to rock my garbha around and come back to sitting, just in time to be hoisted into Kukkutasana. However, I can only rock by swinging my forearms around for momentum. Tim commented something about a magnificent drama or something typical like that.

So, Kukkutasana is the only posture in Primary that I am incapable of attaining without help. Well, I can't quite cross my feet in Supta Kurmasana, but that's very close. Speaking of which, my hips are opening, so my legs are coming further around my shoulders, which is deeply exciting. Michelle gave me an excellent adjustment yesterday, pulling my legs further behind my shoulders before crossing my feet. The tittibasana exit was excellent. The practice works, as it turns out...

Teaching is fun, taxing, nervewracking, and rewarding all at once. I normally teach a Monday night intro class, where we do the basics of Primary - essentially all of standing, skipping ardha baddha padmotanasana, and the first half of seated skipping the half loti and skipping to backbends after the Marichis. I subbed for Lorraine on Tuesday, where we pared down Primary but added in the half loti, Marichyasana B, all the jannus, etc. I was proud of the students for giving everything an honest effort. One in particular reminded me of myself several years ago - the big, burly, stiff white guy giving a valiant effort despite undoubtedly feeling very self-conscious of the bendy women surrounding him.

Ironic how in the West yoga has a reputation for being a women-centric activity, something women are naturally better at then men. Then you practice every day for a few years and realize that everybody is challenged. The beauty of Ashtanga. 

Tomorrow's a Moon Day. Full moon, time to howl a little.

Practice Review

Not much to report.

Marichyasana D is routine, I can hold it for five of Tim's breaths but longer than that and it becomes quite painful.

Garbha is improving in that I can manage a few more rocks before beaching myself. It and kukku are the only poses that are giving me trouble.

Everything else in Primary is routine. My backbends are getting deeper as I manage to work up into my upper spine.