Progress

With the warm weather and the beginning of blooming flowers it appears my body is opening up from its rigid winter stiffness. Had another practice with very little pain, and no ‘bad’ pain. I did feel some tenderness in the knee on the right side (used to be the left so now the pain has switched sides –psychosomatic? energy blockage?). I’ve been working the legs very intensely in all postures and really working on my chaturanga and the general form of sun salutations in general. The piriformis thingy has disappeared, though I mysteriously had some weakness there on Saturday (a coldish rainy day), though I didn’t practice at all that day. Perhaps a weather induced stiffness there, giving me a premonition of creaky days in my elder years to come. Breath and bandhas have been the focus and this has really altered my practice. I am able to inhabit the postures that I am doing more and more without mentally moving on to the next one. This presence, combined with the breath bandha focus seems to be the best injury prevention of all. Intention ‘Being in the posture with the ability to breath fully and freely…let go of how far I should be, what posture I should be doing…etc etc.”

I’ve actually been enjoying my practice lately…may the trend continue!

Critical Point

There comes that critical point in the morning, in between my sitting meditation practice and my yoga practice where I pick up the laptop and start to look at email and/or blogs. I allow myself 15 minutes for this before hitting the mat. After 15 minutes I find myself tipping in the tamasic zone unable to tear myself from blog-reading or email. Thus, the inveitable no practice or afternoon practice and the feelings of guilt until I actually do get onto the mat. My 15 minutes are up…..

Afternoon Practice

I had an early morning meeting today so i was not able to get onto the mat until late afternoon. I often don’t like to practice at that time because of the upsurge of energy i feel can sometimes interfere with my going to sleep at a decent hour. It then screws with my schedule for getting up early the next day to practice. I don’t know if it is the Spring Equinox, but I’ve been feeling very emotional and a bit off all day. Having a hard time concentrating and getting tasks done. Also feeling quite exhausted even though I slept for about 10.5 hours last night.

I took it easy and just practice through the first few seated poses and on to finishing. Forward bends are still pretty iffy, though my backbending was very open today.

Not much blogging

I’ve been struggling alot with practice lately, and rather than expend energy blogging about it I’ve been trying to keep on, keeping on…as they say. Recent developments: another nose dive in the area of flexibility…not sure what is going on here, but my body has stiffened up..most noticeably in forward bending. My gf took some pics lately which I will not share, but I was unhappy to see that I had lost alot of length and depth in both standing and seated forward bends. Backbending is about the same. I’ve been focusing alot on breath and bandhas and been trying to forget what the poses look like and let go of any conception of how far I shoudl be in postures. Good news: most all pain, stiffness is gone from shoulder and knee, so though i am stiff I am largely practicing without pain. I eliminated most sugar and dairy from my diet and wonder if that has something to do with the stiffness? It seems to me that those things cause stiffness, but every body is different.

Been positively exhausted at night, and been sleeping like a baby like 10-11 hours a night. It seems I am finally making up for all of the lost sleep during graduate school.

I made my order of coconut water from Amazon last night and am anxiously awaiting its arrively for my post practice recovery beverage. Yum!

Joints melting

Warm weather is loosening me up. No shoulder pain, or knee pain lately. I’ve been building up my practice again after taking a week off in early March, also quit drinking coffee for about 12 days, but have over the last two days had a couple shots of espresso….so i guess I’m back on the bean.

My practices have felt very light and strong, and fairly limber. I’ve been laying back so as to not re-injure my senstive areas: piriformis, left knee, rigth shoulder. Breath and bandhas, breath and bandhas…that has been my main focus. I’ve been able to relax my jaw and next alot more since quitting coffee, I think I was holding some accummulated tension in those areas.

I’m moving into week 3 of Michael Gannon’s pranayama CD. I actually spent two weeks on Pranayama 1, to build up to two sets of retentions. The pranayama has really helped my practice. I feel so much more in control of my breath, particularly my inhales and have been experiencing more depth in the postures because of it. Not to mention the increased concentration and relaxation I’ve experienced from the pranayama. I feel it is really revolutionizing my practice.