Hamstrings are getting shorter

Can it be possible that this can happen? My hamstrings have always been one of those things I never worry about, well until now. From the time I was really young, I could more or less get the hands flat on the floor. With persistent practice, at least for this year, I more or less lay my torso on the legs with almost zero warmup. The strangest thing is that lately, I have been feeling a persistent tug on the back of my butt and near the knees whenever I forward bend. Strange and scary thought..I did pull my adductors on both sides while doing some silly stuff without warmups, but hammies have never really suffered much from it.

I have tried isolating what I have been doing different lately.

1. Doing kurmasana by skipping ahead of the series because I was too lazy to go through all the forward bends - did that sometime last week.
2. Trying hanumansana on the wall and doing a kinda of oversplit cos B was asking me to press the back of my legs in to the walls and perhaps I overdid that?
3. Not being warm enough because of my slower pace while practicing at home?

It probably is a combo of all the above, because today while practising at home, I felt really gripping of the hammies. In fact while in tiriang mukha I felt my extended right leg shaking! Haven't happened for almost 1 year, since I started a more consistent practice.

Shucks, just hope they would ease up because I'm really not used to it.

Well on to my record of what I have been up to past week. I have done home practice much more, except Saturday when I went for mysore. There was a new girl in class who had fantastic flexibility, I was pretty amazed. For someone who said she'd never done mysore she was good. Very open. Anyway despite the "slight" tinge on envy, I believe that I can be just as good or even better with practice. OK sour grapes me.

Anyhow did home practice most of past 2 days. Today was nice, just did numerous sun salutations and concentrated on the jumping forward and back. I am trying to work on sliding, because I reckon it activates the bandhas much more. When I jump I often use my legs to propel myself, and I think it does nothing in helping me to build a stronger core and the ability to float one day. So I did work on a slow lift activating my abdominals as much as possible. Nowhere near floating, but I did slide quite nicely a couple of times. Also replaced all the updogs with cobra again because I am working on getting more curve into my upper spine. I read in yoga journal that we are not supposed to use the lumbar so much in backbending but aim to have smooth curve all the way up the spine. I reckon my pain in the SI joints comes from crunching the lumbar because I tend to clench my butt and externally rotate the legs. This is supposed to be real bad and causes compression. So...I was thinking the only thing I can do is work on getting a bigger curve further up the spine to avoid relying so much on the lumbar only.

I have also been working on holding a block between my legs in UD whenever I go up to train my hamstrings to activate so that I don't externally rotate the legs as much. It works! Today, after a few tries with the block, I took it off and my legs didn't turn out when I went up. It really felt like a relieve on the lower back. All the curve just went into my thoracic. The feeling was fabulous. Also worked with the feet close together instead of hip width apart. Feels great and pushes the curve all the way higher. B once made me do that in class and told me it was a "WOW" backbend;) So am working on that for now.

Did a class last week, and B focused mostly on backbends, Natarajasana, rajakapotasana and eka pada rajakapotasana. That was a whole load of backbends and it was kinda fun. I was pretty ok with them, but didn't try natarajasana without a strap cos I was kinda stiff. But the pigeons were good. For rajakapotasana B had us lying on our stomachs close to the wall and letting the shins go up the wall. Then we worked on bending back as per the usual cobra until we were close to our feet. Then he just came over and moved my feet to my head. Cool. I have done that quite a few times, but usually with a compressed feeling in my back. That day all was great and I felt thrilled. However, I noticed my pelvis was pushed off the floor like this. So I reckon that some more flexibility is definitely called for.

Other than that, nothing new to report, just that recently my baddha konasana is improving immensely. At mysore, I got my forehead to the floor pretty easily. I credit my self adjustments for the new development. Really seems to be helping!

Anyhow, thats about it...ciao bella;)