Ouchie

Today’s practice hurt. I awoke around 6:30am and had my usual cup of black coffee and began the practice around 7am. My hamstrings seem to be getting tighter and my calfves’s were very very tight. Was barely able to bind on either side of Mari C, though I did manage it on my right side..fingertip bind. Maybe it was the junk food last night, or the morning cuppa. Who knows? We’ll see how tomorrow goes.

Again it was hard to get out of bed and I had a long dreamless sleep. Felt very stiff, wonder if the nighttime stretching has anything to do with that. I’ve been doing virasana for about 10-15 minutes and some easy hip opening. Seems to have helped sleep.

I was reading Gregor Maehle’s book today in regards to the mari’s, and he notes that on Mari A alot of weight should be put into the bent leg and the tendency is not to do this and to instead sort of launch the torso over the straight leg. I want to explore this more tomorrow. I suspect I may not be getting as much hip opening as I could in this posture. It is sad how far my head is from my leg. I keep promising myself to be patient and do the practice for the sake of the practice and not to look a certain way, or be somewhere int he postures.

Food today

6:30am Coffee
No breakfast - bad man!
1:30pm Eel and veggie rice bowl
3pm -Americano - 2shots
6:30pm dinner(undecided) perhaps some pasta with red sauce and parm, steamed broccoli or a salad.

Food for the day

Since I had a particularly trashy food day today, i thought I would make a habit of recording my food intake daily so I can document what food choices may or may not affect my practice.

here goes:

6:30 pre-practice coffee
7:00 practice
9:00/9:15 - no breakfast - odwalla superfood
10:00 - chai soy latte
1pm brown rice with soy sauce and fried egg, handful of spinach and baby carrots
4pm - large mocha latte, with 3 shots of espresso - yippee!
8pm - taco bell - desperation and poverty meal, an all time low - double decker taco, eww mystery meat, and two bean burritos. Its amazing how this kind of food can taste good sometimes, but my body really seemed to be craving it. so no apologies.

That’s it, pretty good till dinner, maybe a bit too amped up on caffeine.

I’m sure there will be plenty of vata, or wind in tomorrow’s practice.

D

Stiffy

Arghh! stiff as wet cement today, which I suppose is better than hardened cement. However, I completed my first full practice this week today. I’ve been doing shortened practices all week due to sickness and exhaustion. At the moment I am practicing up to Marichasana C and am only able to bind on the right side. I’ve been stuck here for a couple weeks now. Not sure what could be causing this lack of twisting power, but I think the real culprit is a stiff right shoulder. I’m just a few inches short of a finger bind on the left side and think this will open up shortly, especially if I can continue with a few outside of practice shoulder openers. I continue with my small cup of black coffee first thing in the morning, right after meditation practice and before my asana practice. It helps to warm up my body as well as stimulating and energizing my concentration and focus in the practice.

Had a fabulous and restful night of sleep last night, felt deeper and calmer than any nights I’ve had in quite a while. I did a few hip openers before bed and that seemed to contribute to the overall quality of my sleep.

More soon.

Namaste,

D