Ready for the last pose?

Ahh..had a great mysore practice today. Finally, no compression in the back in backbends, the legs moved pretty willingly together in Supta K, hamstrings were loose, and I stood up 3 times unassisted.

Well..alright..in Supta K, I suppose a toe bind is still considered binding by my standards..so yippeee! B took it behind my head after that though, and this time I didn't feel that huge pull in my lower back I usually get in Supta K. Also my stomach finally reached the floor in kurmasana..I couldn't quite believe it myself. When I first got this pose, B adjusted me a little and voila..stomach was on the floor. I never managed it again after that one time. I don't know why it was so easy that very first time and then everything kinda seized up and that was it. Welll.that was probably 6 months ago. So in that period, B has been telling me to put the stomach down nearly everytime and I just failed miserably. Maybe because the body wasn't expecting anything much to happen when I first did it, and was pretty relaxed. After that time, I must have temsed everything up in anticipation of Supta K and never got it again.

Whats different today? I dunno. Perhaps all the home practice and trying hard to put my stomach down at home finally worked. Maybe because its almost that time of the month for me..I do tend to be exceptionally flexible just before my period. Maybe my hamstrings have lengthened. Anyway I am hoping I can keep doing it.

So I suppose being so deep in kurmasana helped in Supta K and getting my feet together was relatively easy..shuffle..shuffle..and they were touching..and more shuffling..and I got the toes over my left foot.

Backbending was good..stood up quite easily. Dropping back is fine, but I still can't do a smooth controlled touch down. I figure I drop the last 3-4 inches down with a plop. Again..the strange thing is that the first time I did drop backs maybe 4 months ago, I had the lightest touch down and I could even hang for a few breaths before gently touching my fingers down. Never could do it again after that though. I can't understand how I can usually do it much better the first time, and then it all goes downhill for months. Strange things happen in Ashtanga for me. I hope like kurmasana, I will be able to do it like the first time in the near future.

Nothing else was too interesting. Was again given permission to try second series...but when I came to the point B said to start the second series poses, he was busy walking around the room and seem to have forgotten all about it..so I didn't want to just dive into pasasana on my own, and that was that. I just continued and finished primary..minus setu bandhasana of course. Yep I still haven't done it, although B said to go ahead and do it. I am such a chicken..I am sure I won't actually break my neck doing it..but I just don't try it. I promise..tomorrow when I practice at home..I will try this neck breaker! see...I am already jinxing myself...shucks.

Alright then..so Setu Bandhasana tomorrow;) My last given pose in primary...kinda excited now..;)

I'm too lazy to think of a title for this post

Been practising at home the past few days. No observance of moon days or 1 day of rest for me. I have no idea when they are anyway, those moon days..and taking a day off doesn't bode well for my body cos doing yoga is like brushing my teeth. I can't get through the day if I didn't "brush"...

But I did skip S's usual advanced hatha class that I usually go to on Mondays. There's been quite a lot going on in my life personally, and driving all the way to class was a little bit of a hassle. I just wanted to get down to the series and do what I can. S usually does lots of backbends in her class...mostly because I suspect she has an awesome backbend. Not much strength related stuff though. I also figure backbends are not what I want to work on lately..what with my whacky lower back and dismal leg behind the head poses. I think I work way too much into my lumbar in all asanas and that is a problem I need to address.

So this week has been light on backbending for me..no attempts at putting the feet on the head or grabbing the foot....blah blah. I hope that wouldn't mean I will regress at those stuff when I feel ready to do it again. The thing is when I am in class, I tend to do extreme stuff even if its bad for me. I think I am an exhibitionist at heart...well who am I kidding..I am definitely an exhibitionist. At least in the comfort of my own home, there's really no one to show off to.

So, with regards to leg behind head..well today was not too bad. I managed to get the right side quite far behind the head while lying on my back in some sort of kashyabasana thing. B showed me how to do it before in class, and I have been doing that instead of supta kurmasana in the series the past few days. Still have to hold on to the foot for dear life, but at least it got behind my head..left side was problematic, just kinda stuck with the foot lodged into my neck. I've been told I have a less open left hip..and it does show up quite obviously most of the time. I hope that it will resolve itself soon enough.

Other than that I don't have a lot more to report. An interesting thing I did notice was that with regards to the hamstrings, dangling for a minute in uttanasana, sort of holding my elbows with the opposite hand does open my hamstrings up a lot. I did it today before that first surya namaskara just on a whim and breathed into it. Before I knew it my torso dropped on my thighs and for the rest of the practice, my hamstrings stayed really loose. I really should do this more often.

Filling the gaps..

Thats what my teacher was doing to me most of today..like I mentioned before I know and he knows what my problem is..and today was all about those problems.

Lets see now..firstly B must have gotten a little miffed by my inability to lotus my leg in the Marichyasanas...so he suggested a slightly different ankle placement..which I must report fixed my issue right away. Now why didn't I think of that..so my Marichyasanas are back to normal. Binds are great, and the knee is not complaining either. although it didn't save me from getting twisted even further and turning all the way around to catch my shin. Thats the problem with things..once you do it once..you're expected to consistently do the same thing..and I wasn't particularly twisty today..felt like the wind got twisted out of me..

Bhujapidasana..still bad. I can lower my head down and get the feet between the arms for about 2 seconds before collapsing on my head and my feet hit the ground. According to my teacher, I was supposed to hover with my chin and feet off the mat and feet should be between the hands. Well ideally anyway. His option for was to put the head down and lift the feet. I suck at this asana..its probably worse than my supta K..

Supta K..no feet binding...they were in fact not even together today...about 2 inches apart. No amount of coaching and support from B made any difference. They just seem to be too short to ever be able to cross when I get my hands together..I know I am probably just making an excuse for my inability to bind..but I believe my long torso and short legs are the problem..although my teacher insists its practice.

Other than that Garba was hard... I got my arms pulled through but it felt miles away from my face. It was pretty humbling to sit there in this pathetic looking almost garba pose and get pretty much stuck. I don't really want to go into that one..I felt pretty bad about how bad it looked...in fact I didn't even roll..

Other than that well everything was not too bad. Jump throughs were great, jump backs non existent. That is pretty consistent for me. B wanted us to try Setu Bandhasana today. I'd kinda been expecting it for a while. Like I said I have been too 1. chicken to do it, 2. been waiting for teacher to give the pose. Now that its officially ok to do it..well I can only fall back on reason no 1. and well time constraints of course. It was almost the end of class after all.

Also..in a rather crim way..B also asked that those people who wanted to could go ahead and try the second series poses. I have to firstly say that my teacher is not the MOST traditional type. His way of teaching is to get you to do as many poses as you can, and modify those that you can't really do. So in a way we have lots of liberty to add our own poses if we felt we were able to. However once you've established what you can do..adding new poses are not really the norm..considering the the few people who are in class including myself..are not altogther advanced ashtangis..we have our work cut out for us doing those parts of primary series that we can handle. So today was really a free for all green light to try some of the second series poses..and since all the people in the room was regular I guess it was the right time to announce this.

Anyway yours truly didn't do any second series. I mean I got to be realistic..I can't even bind my supta k properly. Standing up is not too bad..but today was kinda a surprise because I almost fell backwards standing up.

Anyhow..but I think since the invite is out..I will get to do second series soon..at least the first few poses. Hmm...that would be a darn long practice though...

Some self practice notes

Hmm..yes only practiced at home the last few days..except on Monday when I went for a hatha class. Been busy not only at work, but someone asked me to teach a corporate yoga class and I had to prepare some paper work and other stuff for their human resource people to look through.

So anyhow, I did some most of primary series yesterday and today. Ended it after baddha konasana as I don't have a particularly hard time with rest of the asanas, except for Setu Bandhasana which I don't do anyway. So as far as progress goes, there's about...NIL.

In fact I have been kinda going backwards..firstly I have modified Mari B and D recently because of a persistent ankle problem on the left side. So instead of putting my leg into lotus I just leave in on the floor. B noticed it in mysore the last 2 sesssions..and asked me about it. It is also because since he kinda wrenched my left knee apart in garba a long while ago that he is always on the look out for my knee problems in lotus stuff. I think he feels a little guilty about it.
So just when my Marichyasanas were coming along nicely I've had to back off that too..

My feeble attempts at kurmasana and supta k were not that much better either. I did manage to cross my feet in supta k, but then the arms were darn far apart. I think I really have to bind my hands first before trying to cross the ankles..otherwise my shoulders have a hard time ducking under the legs again. Luckily not much back pain today, but then again I didn't get in deep either. After that I sat in some tarasana variation to try to work on tilting on pelvis and stretching the side of my hamstrings. The strange thing is that I have very open hamstrings when my legs are straight, but the moment I externally rotate my legs (as in try to cross the feet) I feel a big pull on the side of my calfs and around the hips. So that only tells me one thing..I just got to sit in some semblance of supta k long enough to loosen things up. I did it for baddha K and I am sure I can do the same with this one.

Another interesting note is that because of my back problem I've had to really concentrate on the UD alignments again. Knees parallel and feet pointing forward. B told me that I was supposed to do 3 from the floor and drop back 6 times..I think thats what he said anyway the last class. He also told me that traditionally people have to keep their feet together in the second UD from the floor. I totally DO NOT believe that is the traditional way at all. He just wants me to do it becauseI hate it when he makes me bring my feet together. After I told him he was torturing me, he insisted that it was the traditional method.... B's way of handing me a challenge recently has always been to tell that the way he recommends it is the traditional method. I think it has also got to do with the fact that I am one of those students who love to question the teacher to death about anything that I don't want to do.

Anyhow I didn;t get my feet together at home, but I did use a block between my feet as I feel it helps me stop splaying the feet. Anyway it does feel good when it works because the bend doesn't go into my lumbar so much and instead hits the chest and upper back. It actually felt darn good.

Other than that I have nothing new to report..mysore class tomorrow..we'll see if being in class can improve my performance or not...

About kurmasana and other random rants about my practice..

This post is mostly gonna be about Kurmasana. Past 2 weeks has mostly been about this pose for me..

I told B about my kurmasana pain in the back in class and asked him not to adjust me. His response was that I wasn't doing this enough and therefore did not feel comfortable in it. I didn't tell him that his adjustment was one of the things that gave me my grief in the first place...

Anyway just some background info.. My kurmasana is not too bad actually, my chin, chest and shoulders are on the floor, legs on back of the shoulders, and I can lift the heels and the pelvis off the mat if I make an effort to do it. I usually get into it by jumping my feet around the hands, standing into a titibhasana kinda of pose and sitting down with the legs behing my shoulders. The thing is, I look pretty comfotable in that pose most of the time and my teachers often try to get my stomach on the floor as well. BAD NEWS. Everytime I get squashed into a pancake, with my stomach pretty much close to the floor, I'd have this horrible lower back ache once I get out of it. (in addition to being tied up into supta kurmasana before I get out of the pose). It got so bad about 2 weeks back that I felt my leg go numb for a few days after a mysore class. I kinda think I might have a pinched nerve. The numbness is gone now and I am super careful about not getting the same problem again.

So..after one of the classes I asked B what to do about it and he asked me to practice more often. Its not that I don't practice, but I just don't make much attempt at the "turtles" when I practice at home. I usually just get into a loose kurmasana for 5 breaths and continue on to other stuff. He also asked me to try yoga nidrasana.

Anyway B must have discussed this with another teacher because guess what? In one of the hatha classes, S made us do it and went on about how this pose keeps us young when practiced frequently and that patience is required to get the pose. Also she mentioned that its probably the pelvis that needs to open up in order to get into it properly. I had discussed more or less the same stuff with B, so I gather I've become a case study of sorts.

So anyhow, yesterday's mysore class, B didn't adjust me much. The time he tried to flatten me again, I made it pretty clear that he SHOULDN'T push my lower back. Sigh..sometimes teachers can get over zealous with adjustments....He also got me to walk my feet together after I binded my hands to try to cross the feet. Shucks..I almost did it in S's class, but couldn't cross it yesterday...progress is definitely non-linear in this pose..God knows why some days are hard and some days are alright.

After the "event", B sat down with me to try and talk me through the whole thing and again and I think try to get me to practice it myself more often. Good news is that without any major adjusts, my back is feeling much better now and no numbness in the right quadricep either. YAY. However the bad news is that without major adjusts..my progress will have to be totally my own effort...

So I did a hip only sesssion just now to try and get the leg behind my head on my back..totally failed. I thinks it a combo of not being warm enough and tight butt symdrome. But what it did inform me about myself is that if I don't open up those glutes..my back is gonna continue aching for a long while.

I figure there are 2 main things in kurmasana that I need to achieve. Long hamstrings..which I do have, but perhaps need even more length. and external rotation of my legs, which is rather poor for me. The only thing I figure will help is lots of sleeping pigeon in all sorts of position for the legs and baddha konasana. Perhaps throw in some firelog, dead bug, leg behind head..and I may have a chance of being comfortable here..

How long its gonna take? No idea..

To be honest I am feeling just a little bit disillusioned about Ashtanga at the moment. All those injuries - knee pains, ankle pains, back pains, elbow pains. Is it all worth it? Its not like I get a prize for doing the asanas.. my prize at the moment has been injury after injury. Am I being overzealous myself and causing all this to happen? I don't know..if I ask myself now..I'd say no..I'd been careful enough. My teacher being too eager to get me into the pose? I don't know..I'd say he does get a little carried away sometimes, but I wouldn't say its his fault that I am having this slight crisis in my belief in the practice.

I don't think this will be the end of me and my practice..but I'd say recently have been a bit of a low point. I think I should get over it soon enough. After all, I can't really imagine another style I'd do if not Ashtanga vinyasa. What else is there? Iyengar, sivananda, anusara? not really my cup of tea. Give up yoga? NEVER. So I can rant today..and tomorrow will be another day that I continue practicing I guess.

To end on a high note to self...I finally got my arms thru for garba and rolled..although I got stuck and had to helped up by my teacher..;P

New asanas to focus on..

I've just realised that I've managed to do the stuff I'd mentioned when I started blogging back in December last year. I had 3 main things I'd wanted to do:

1. Getting a relatively flat baddha konasana - which I more of less have now
2. Kick up to handstand - which I can do against the wall vs not having the guts to try it at all back then
3. Stand up and drop back with ease - which I can more or less do

In addition to that recently I've jumped through with straight legs..something I've thought would be years away. I can lift to lolasana everytime, though still can't jump back properly, I can lift to headstand, move my legs half way down and stay a decent amount of time...and get my shoulders well under the legs in kurmasana.

Things have been kinda creeping up on me, and it just struck me its about time to focus on the other stuff that I still can't do. Seems that if I just write it down, it kinda works out sooner or later..

So..lets see, I think what I need to work on from now on is:

1. Bhujapidasana - getting head to floor and feet between my hands and coming up again
2. Binding supta kurmasana and lifting up to titibhasana and jumping back
3. Navasana lifts
4. Garba pindasana - actually threading my hands through and rolling
5. Setu Bhandasana
6. Jumping back


Seems to me the common thread here is mostly bandhas..for items 1,3 and 6 definitely. The other thing is opening the hips enough to get comfortable in supta kurmasana without straining the back and garba is also a hip thing for me. Setu Bhandasana I think is mostly overcoming fear and laziness and actually doing it.

I reckon as usual a gameplan is in order:

1. Do bhujapidasana and make an effort to lower head totally to the floor. Attempt jump back from here.
2. Kurmasana daily until it gets comfortable for my back
3. ACTUALLY lifting after each navasana instead of getting off my bum only.
4. DO garba
5. Lolasana lifts between asanas
6. Try setu bhandasana with hands on floor supporting the head.

I reckon that fixes most of the holes in my practice...now we'll just have to see how long it would take to do all these..;)

Injured again?

I've been pretty worried the past few days...injuries galore...I guess its my fault being overzealous and injuring myself..although I didn't feel anything while I was actually doing asanas. I think it was a combination of excessive backbending and too much supta kurmasana...Anyway I've been having this persistent back ache in the lumbar spine, also I think i have some sort of pinched nerve which is giving me a numbness in my righ thigh.

Much better now though...but I was soo worried it was gonna be a serious thing. The numbness is almost gone today..I abstained from practice the last 2 days..and during mysore, didn't do supta K or dropbacks...seems to me these asanas are a lethal combination when it comes to my back...

On a more positive note...my jump throughs are VERY consistent now. I mostly get it 8 out of 10 times...thats pretty good by my standards..Funny though, I can't float through with crossed legs, but do it pretty well with straight legs. I don't know if its a different dynamic..

Now if only I could jump back with as much ease...think I better work on those uth plutihs and lolasanas...and L-plant lifts.. I can't yet lift with straight legs, but I suspect that when I can, I should have a better chance jumping back.

I taught ny first class today at the gym...I figure I was ok...but Mr Calcutta who kindly came to my class told me I wasn't speaking loadly enough, and for an Ashtanga class, I was too soft. Well yeah, I skipped all the vinyasas, and basically did only 3 As ans 2 Bs..But I've figured out that I just need to throw in lots of long holds and chatturangas...will update..