No class today..D's on leave or something..thats close to more than 1 and half months that I've not had a single mysore class with him. Plenty of classes across the causeway though.
My current routine after finishing off whatever pose I feel like doing last, since there is no way I can last through primary and up to eka pada in second on a daily basis, is to do some crim shoulder stretches. I lie on my stomach right up to a wall with my head touching it, a block lengthwise between my hands against the wall and work at moving my armpits towards the floor. Its more of a torture than anything I'm actually doing during practice. I feel like my left shoulder, and armpit, are cramping and about to tear off or something...Then I move my arms up the wall so they straighten, and work on stretching something else in the armpits.
I suspect that the torture comes from both my triceps and the lats which are tightening up like crazy lately due to my jumpback project. Yup, more on that later. I've been noticing the backbends getting rather uncomfortable lately, and suspect its got a lot to do with this overbuild I'm getting in the shoulders and arms. I try to stretch them out in downdog as much as I can without collaspsing into my chest, which usually takes way too much bend, but it seems that with bent arms its a totally different dimension.
I've also taken a page out of the yoga journal article on propping up backbends, so have incorporated some sort of hip flexor cum quad stretch with a block propping up my sacrum and one leg tucked under and moving towards the hip, and the other bent. Its not as intense as supta virasana, but it seems to do a fairly good job lengthening the quads. I then finish wth my favourite stretch, putting a block under my thoracic spine and lying back over it like some version of matsyasana, but with virasana legs. Its a delicious stretch, I love that one.
Been doing this past few days and backbends have definitely been more open an lower back friendly as a result.
On to the jumpback front..its getting a little bit better, in the sense that I can kinda consistently lift and swing..but still stuck with the feet hitting the floor and then hopping back to chaturanga. I got a mp3 of Duncan Wong talking about vinyasa and jumpbacks/jump throughs. Its got some good tips and I've kinda been trying to put some of the stuff to work for me, ie:
1. Squeeze the inner heels together to activate bandha (I think it helps in downdog)
2. Lift and lower from a quasi lolasana (meaning my legs don't leave the floor) to bakasana to simulate the jumpback action. I do this before the surya namaskaras cos I find it seems to activate my core better, and makes me more lifty in the jumps.
He talks about some other stuff as well, but I can't quite remember the rest, got to listen to it again.
Other than that, I've been doing what J told me to do, ie:
1. tuck to get through the jumpthroughs instead of straight legs,
2. lift the hips high even if I get stuck on the floor halfway back and then bunny hop back.
3. Press hands down in trini and push into the floor to jumpback, elbows straight, and only microbending when I land, so I don't collapse all the way into chaturanga which I normally do.
4. Lift hips high while getting out of bhuja and swinging back without the knees on my legs in bakasana. I actually find this one much easier to do than bakasana actually. By the time I get to bakasana, I'd be worrying about losing it there, by skipping the perch and just hovering near my arms, its way easier to control my landing. I'm surprised J told to to just go straight back..hahaha..he probably thinks t'll make it harder for me..not the other way around;P
Thats all for practice notes...off to bed now.
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