Sunday = Primary Series

Today’s practice, as I will continue through NaYoPracMo is full primary…I will continue to do this on Sundays. I worked on backbends today, the pic above is either #5 or #6. I still need to get more weight through the feet and engagement of the legs. Want to try standing up soon.

As far as doing all of primary is concerned, didn’t feel much different, as I’m stopping 3 poses shy of doing the whole series anyway at this point. so maybe I’ll be doing primary as my daily practice by the end of the month.

In honor of NaYoPracMo starting tomorrow I went to Target and got myself a jumbo bottle of Ibuprofen. Hopefully I won’t be chomping em like candy, but who knows…better to be prepared I say!

Happy New Year to everyone!

Love and Light,

David

Saturday Practice

Today’s practice started out stiff and painful, ended up fairly limber. Was able to work with the trick knee, with very little uncomfortable sensation and no pain at all during the practice. I just took an attitude of gentleness and nurturance towards my body, in particular that left knee. During the Prasarita Padottanasana series I experienced a wave or flow of energy and sensation that went through the soft tissues just below my left knee and traveled up to the hip, simultaeneously i felt the same flow up the back of the leg and through the sciatic nerver area. I felt fear which I let go of pretty quickly, then the sense of a deep unwinding in that area. What ever it is that let go in my body seems to have been connected to the pain in that knee. I noticed a lot more space around that joint after that, allowing for movement without pain.

I’ve been experimenting alot with dropping my head, still lifting and straightening the back, but letting the head drop…particularly in forward bends. I feel an intense tingling and release in the area where the hamstring attachments are. In some ways I feel like I’ve reached a dead en d in forward bending, but this action seems to be releasing the areas I need to go even deeper. It is also helping with the tension and tenderness I am feeling in the left side of my neck, where I had a whiplash injury many years ago. Consciously releasing any tension in my face and jaw also helps that area to relax.

All in all it was a satisfying practice, despite the fact that I may now be considered a yoga ‘criminal’ for practicing on a rest day. I attempting lifting on all jumpbacks and had some good progress with this, until later in the series after Navasana where my muscles became quite fatigued. My main obstacle with the jump thrus and jump backs is the inability to tightly curl myself into a ball. I think this may be due to both a tightness in the hamtrings and the psoas. I will just keep trying, ever day seems to bring a little bit more progress.

Namaste.

No practice

I feel as if events conspired against me today, in terms of having a practice, however…I must take responsibility for my own decisions that lead to an asana practice or lack thereof. At any rate, we got hit by the second part of ‘The Blizzard of 2006.’ Not quite as nasty as the first part, but still enough to close some things down here in the Front Range, and my honey got the day off work. This made for some nice warm morning cuddling, not the usual get out of bed at 5am and practice while she is getting ready for work.

As I work at home, external weather doesn’t affect me much. I guess this is one of the drawbacks, that I will never get a snow day, but I also am self-employed and only get paid if I am working, so not such a bad thing. I had a leisurely breakfast, and coffee, froliced in the snow, did a little shopping, messed around with photoshop…which I am attempting to learn, got some urgent work things done, spent some time with the honey, and suddenly too late to practice and food in the stomach. Maybe I will fit in a before bedtime practice, but not looking too likely as a bottle of red wine was just uncorked.

I may practice tomorrow. Saturdays and moon days are usually days off, but as I only made it to the mat 4 times this week I may do a Sat. practice. It will probably do the tweaked knee some good to rest today anyway.

Stay warm wherever you are.

Namaste.

Very little sleep

I vaguely remember coming up with some witty name for today’s blog post this morning, but it was soon washed under the wave of present centered awareness that hit as I became subsumed within the pranic wash of practice.

I awoke at 3:32am after a night of drinking a few too many glasses of wine with some dear friends.  I tossed and turned during the night when I did sleep, and my body temperature did some very wonky ups and downs during the night.  This seems to happen every time I drink nowadays, suddenly my body’s thermostat goes on the fritz.  At any rate, I awoke at 3:32am and started to worry about the important meeting the next day and all of the terrible things that would happen, mostly just involving me feeling like shit because I didn’t get enough sleep and drank the night before.  This is always the biggest worry with lack of sleep, that the next day will just absolutely suck in a monumentally sucky way…due to exhaustion and the emtional upheaval sleeplessness often brings with it.

I read for a bit and got very cold, so I took a hot shower and got on the mat.  Practice was quite good compared to my stiffy practices of late.  I got through the practice with a minimum of pain in my left knee, though I could really see my weakness in vinyasas due to the sleeplessness. My attempts at jumpbacks and jumpthrus were also quite weak for the same reason.  All in all it was good simply to practice. Though I am now experiencing quite a bit of stiffness and pain in quite a few areas of my body: left knee (very slight), right shoulder, piriformis right side, lower back left side. Hmmm, practice felt fine, but who knows…maybe these are openings.  They seem to be the kind of aches and pains that disappear quickly enough, usually as the emotional weather changes.

All in all today had not sucked. I got through the meeting, which was very helpful and informative.  I also have not yet crashed, though I can feel the tiredness starting to hit. Tomorrow will be a day off, so nothing I have to do, but practice!

Namaste.

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more flexi less stiffy

So today i started up with me routine, once again of waking early in the morning to practice asana.  I arose at 6:30am, later than I had intended, but nevertheless was up and onto my mat around 7:00am.  I did a few things, evacuated the bowels, read a bit etc.  Practice was nothing unusual, but a bit rushed at the end. I got very spacey today, lost rhythm, flow, focus etc. quite often. I was still quite stiff, though more like my ‘normal’ morning stiffness rather than the unusual stiffness of yesterday.  I had a 9am meeting, and needed time to prepare so I ended with Uptavishta Konasana and finishing.  My knee is rather tweaked and i think it is from the the recent deepen of Garbha Pindasana and Kukkutasana.  My particularly enthusiastic pushing of my left arm through my lotus legs seems to be the culprit.  Not sure if I will back off from this completely, or just try to take a gentler approach. I suspect that as my hips open some more this will no longer be a problem.  The arms will be easier to get through.  We’ll see what tomorrow’s practice is like and gauge it from there. 

I had no pain at all in knee Mari D, and in that posture the closing of the knee joint seems to aggravate the sore spot which is just below the knee cap and to the right  (inside of my left leg knee.)  I am praying this isn’t anything serious.  I will be careful. I’ve also been icing and taking ibuprofen.  The knee feels fine today after practice as I didn’t force myself into anythign that caused unpleasant sensation there.  My ego is having a hard time letting go of Kukkutasana, but the modified version wil have to do for now. I will also do some hip openers at night as an adjunct to practice.  I’ve been continuing with shoulder stretches at night, which initially made a huge differene in practice. However lately, my shoulders have still been quite stiff despite the extra nighttime stretching.

Everything changes all the time. Impermanence: the great leveler.

Namaste

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Ouch

My practice today was one big ouch. I’ve got to say I’m not sure how this happens, but ever so often I seem to time travel back into my body of 5 or 6mths before. This happened today. My entire body felt deeply contracted, stiff, and generally lacking in any semblance of my normal flexibility. I guess there is a lesson of impermanence here. There were numerous times during the practice when I thought ‘I might as well not even bother’ yet I persevered and completed this practice. It is times like these where I notice how attached I am to getting somewhere in the practice and in each asana. When I experience a change (or in my mind a ’setback’) I automatically go to a place of self-critiscism, negativity, and ultimately feeling like a failure and deciding to give up. This was what I had to work with today over and over again. Though uncomfortable, today’s endurance practice was a good lesson, and good insight into the working of mind.

I thank the universe for the opportunity to practice.

Eating, napping, unwrapping

No practice today. I kept promising myself to get to practice, but what I can I say? laziness won out. Maybe its a good thing, my last few practices have been very intense and my body is mad sore today. We’ll see how things go tomorrow. Its been a nice day, though I ‘ve got to say I felt tired all day. Hopefully back to regular practice and regular energy lvls tomorrow.

All in all a very nice Christmas, no family except my partner and my cat. Basically everything I could ask for.

Merry Christmas to all…hope you are with loved ones and at peace.

Did my regular practice, couldn’t quite muster up the energy to do all of Primary, but did what I could. Highlight: nice kukkutasana. Nothing else to report.

yawn….primary tomorrow?

I had this big plan of starting to do full primary on Sundays….totally criminal considering my currently lame versions of Mari D, kurmasana, supta kurmasana, etc. However, I remember this helping me immensely before my extended hiatus….when I was actually able to do virtually every primary series asana to its full expression. This Sunday full primary series practice tradition actually amped up my practice enough, in the past, where I moved forward with many asanas and was able to move into the full version. So…I had decided (unofficially) to maybe, perhaps, if I feel like, start doing that again tomorrow(12/24). It is now 1:28am on 12/24 and I am suffering from another bout of insomnia. We’ll see if that full primary happens….I guess that depends upon if I can sleep anytime soon. I thought I would collapse into an alcohol induced coma as I had a whole 2 beers….a radical departure from my almost always never drink amount of 0 beers. It seems to have had the opposite effect…. The partner and I had a particularly energizing conversation about what we loved and respected about each other at the local pub. We then lapsed into what has become a disappointing routine of zoning in front of the boob-tube. She calls this ‘relaxing’, but for me I always feel somewhat depressed and disappointed in myself when I resort to this passive entertainment…which in fact is quite boring to me, just stimulation of my visual senses. This emotional rollercoaster from intense intimacy to total dissociation has left me feeling confused and actually afraid. Afraid perhaps I might lapse into the lifestyle of my parents who sit and eat in front of the TV every single night. In the past I never even owned a TV, or if I did…it performed solely as vehicle by which to watch DVDs or vhs cassetes and had no antenna or cable connection. I felt more ‘pure’ in some way at that time…or perhaps I am just disappointed that I can’t get up on my self-righteous soap box and announce that ‘I don’t own a TV.’ Who knows…its my little trip. My partner has no problems with watching, and I am going to have to make my own boundaries around watching….its my shit.

Anyway, enough of my little TV tirade.

I’ve almost read all of Haruki Murakami’s books and I’ve got to say I feel a little sad. There is something about his writing that feels so familiar and so satisfying to me. I feel like I’m reading about my own life in an alternate reality when I am reading his work. I believe there are only two of his books I have not yet read….Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman and After the Quake.

I can’t remember the last time I devoured a book in the way that I do Murakami’s. I only hope to find something as satisfying in the near future. I begin to think about what I want for the New Year, what my intentions are. I plan to do some envisioning exercises and ritualizes for what i want to bring into my life in this new year. One of my major goals is to own a house.

Well I should say rather, to own my own home. This could be a condo, townhouse, etc. Stand alone homes here are quite magnificently overpriced and seeing as how both my partner and I are in Mental Health and not actually rolling in the cash, we will probably have to settle for something less than a real house. This is fine with me, as long as I can make modifications and paint, etc. We have both been renting for at least 10 years and are very tired of throwing our money away.

One other thing is the practice debate. My own internal conversation about this I mean. I am enjoying my self-practice and am really curious about how far I can go on my own, but also feel I may be cheating myself in some way by not going to class. I have enough Mysore experience under my belt and enough practice time with a certified teacher that I feel ok about going out on my own…but I am wondering more often, lately, if the quality of my practice would just go through the roof with consistent instruction from high quality teachers. In my ideal world I would go to Mysore say 1 or 2 times a week, and practice at home the rest. The fact is I enjoy my home practice more than Mysore…but I must admit that adjustments and feedback can really help. IF that wasn’t the case would Mysore exist? Duh. I also know that a community can help me through the hard times when I can’t get myself to practice. Though so far, since my 9 month hiatus I haven’t had much of a problem with motivation. A couple of periods that passed quickly.

I am thinking I may set a deadline for myself to go back to the studio and commit to 1 day of mysore syle practice there. I no longer have any real financial restrictions to doing this. Money is still tight, but I could find the $60 a month to go once a week if I choose to do that.

Marriage is on the horizon as well. We’ve been together for over 3 years now and I know we will be spending many many more years together. I wrestle with the institution of marriage itself, but feel that our kids..which are also on the horizon would benefit in certain ways by our formalized marriage. so…there is that. So much coming up. I feel 2007 is going to be a big year. As I’ve gotten farther into my 30s it seems that I feel more and more a grown up. Not sure how this is happening, but there is a certain comfort i feel in who I am. Yoga of course..helps me to loosen the hold on this a bit..enough to remain feeling free anyway.

Happy Holidays!

Namaste.

Saturday

No practice today. Did a little bit of yin yoga, to get into my stiff hips due to shoveling snow, pushing out cars and whatnot. Braved the hordes a bit to shop and get provisioned for the holidays. A photo from this evening’s walk. A great way to get grounded after the holiday chaos.