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...