Jumping back is soooo hard....

My teacher is still injured, so no mysore tomorrow. Bleecckk..

Anyhow, I've been pretty consistent with practice the past few days, trying hard to incorporate J's comments into my home practice. However, my wrists are hurting even MORE than they used to hurt before...even with the clawing thing that I do with the hands that J showed to me. Sigh...my wrists are really small and weak...I wonder if we can build muscles in the wrists..??

Besides that, I've tried to lift and pull my butt through on the jump backs as best I can in the vinyasas..its REALLY tiring. I bet this is contributing to my wrist aches. I'm guessing that I look horrible doing it..I get stuck with my feet on the ground when trying to swing back and end up having to walk my feet backwards and then hop back from there. J told me to do it everyday for the next 3-6 months and do it at least 300 times..;P hahaha..actually 3 hundred times is not a lot..I think if I jump back after each seated asana per practice (including between sides) I'd be doing over 25 per practice!!! That works out to only 12 practices...hahhaha. He said that I just need to be able to do it properly once...and then it should be easy..BUT I think it probably will be closer to 3000 times before that one time ever happens.

Anyhow..I think I made a mistake with my last post..J said I can do second series once I can jump back from bakasana on the vinyasa out of bhuja and supta k...not jumpback from dandasana. He also gave me an extra bakasana after utkatasana to work on, so that I can try and jump back from there too.. I've been cheating on those jumpbacks by using a gym ball which I straddle and then practice rolling from plank to bakasana and then lifting my hips high into a mini criminal handstand and then rolling back from there.. its tough work!! even with the ball I'm feeling my stomach work overtime to keep myself up. After a few attempts with the ball I did try the actual jump back from bakasana..and I managed to hop maybe 1 foot backwards..and crashed on my knees..jeeez..

Also I've lost my jumpthroughs in the process..if sooo frustrating! I was jumping through really great for the past few weeks and then now its back to crash landing! I don't know whats the problem..except maybe I've been forgetting the "Mona Lisa" smile thingy that Richard Freeman recommends doing..Also..I DO think one big difference between the times I can float and the crash landing has been my gaze...if I drop my head just when I am jumping and look down..the hips move in a nice arch up, which makes the vinyasa floaty...and when I land, I lift my head up and I float...when I don't do this..I crash. I KNOW there is a difference, but I can't seem to duplicate this when I consciously think about it...its only when I have completely no thoughts when jumping through that I can land reasonably well..

Anyway I'm not supposed to practice my straight legged jump throughs anymore according to J. Its apparently not much of a bandha builder...

I do wish we had a shala here that I can go to...it would be great! I learnt so much stuff from J..it would be really fun to practice with him more often..also he's very funny..in a "tough" kinda way..ahhaha

I went to my Iyengar class at the studio yesterday. I missed K's class last week because I was in Singapore. It was fun with chairs, blocks and straps as usual. Also we got to do handstands..I've never had him teach handstands before..I had a good time helping my partner who has never kicked up into handstand, get up there. K is really funny as well..he is soo serious sometimes that it just cracks me up!