Week after Chinese New Year...

Well I haven’t been posting for a while. Been quite busy with the Chinese New Year holidays and so on. Anyway, whats new? There was no mysore class last week so no new updates. I have been practicing on my own on those days I have not made it for classes at the studio.

My jumps from downdog to uttanasana has been consistently floaty …I can’t remember if I have mentioned that before. In fact I can land with my legs pretty much straight..its the coolest feeling to be so light. Somehow if I bend my knees all the way to the heels, I seem to be able to engage the bandhas when I launch myself off and allows me to land softly. Also the recent jump backs in my Surya Namaskaras have actually caught some air and I can stay a split second longer than the usual crash back on my toes chatturanga.

I figure this has to do with my concentration on core strength lately..navasanas, crunch..navasana..crunch..etc. Also the straight leg lifts into headstand and lower back down to ground. Besides that tolasana lifts between asanas, uth plutih. And I reckon the most effective has been piking on my exercise ball. Bhujapidasana, titthibasana. I am stronger..but I think not strong enough. I reckon to get the jump through and back, I need to be able to do the L-plant and lolasana. At the moment, nope I’m not there yet. But I am working on those things…

I’ve also discovered that perhaps along with this core strength, I have gained much more stability in balances..garudasana, hasta padangusthasana, vira III etc.This is really cool..I’ve always used my flexibility more than my strength in asanas..this recent strength and stability is very new to me. And I am quite inspired to improve this side of things to catch up with my flexibility.

S says I have a nice backbend..she mentioned it last night again in hatha class, cause we were doing all sorts of eka pada rajakapotasana variations. I’m not really that impressed with myself though, my back is pretty bendy, although I’ve lost some of the flexibility through years of unuse. I was way flexible in my younger days. I haven’t tried grabbing ankles yet, and I don’t think I should do it yet until I have better control of my back muscles, but I don’t think it is something unimaginable.

B tried to put me into kapotasana again last week in another hatha class. No go, my shoulders just refused to open up, but that was also partly because B didn’t spend anytime opening up anything before throwing that one out. Actually I didn’t try to get in at all, and stayed in a sorta supta virasana, but B came and lifted me up by the waist, and told me..”you can..you can….” And well I was sort of goaded to try it, but in my attempts to lift myself higher I grabbed his arms instead..so he gave up and asked me to just grab my knees and pull. Anyway after that I felt a little disappointed, because I have definitely done kapotasana before with S, and that time I could get the feet and put my head between the feet, except my face was mushed up against the floor. S told me my backbend was nice, but I need more opening in the upper spine, and I think she may be right.

Other than those things, I don’t have that much more to report. Supta Kurmasana seems to be getting worse for some reason. There were times when I more or less could bring the feet together and almost bind in front of my head by myself, nowadays though my hips seems to have locked up again…and the feet just feel like lead over my shoulders…sigh..


I think the problem could be my pelvis does not tilt when I externally rotate my legs. Baddha konasana has improved recently. When I am warm enough, I can bring my stomach on my legs and forehead on floor with some brute force using my arms. But I find that when I extend the legs further in front, there is a different pull maybe in the hamstring area that doesn’t occur when my legs are straight as in kurmasana.

I figure working on baddha konasana and tarasana consistently should help, but I don’t know and have got to experiment with that.

Tonight I am planning a self practice session, but maybe slower cos my knees are a little bit cranky from yesterday’s quad stretches…Did I mention that I got the job with Gym X?? Just part time now, but potentially full time in the future. Well I am glad…it s aplace to start after all!