Self practice notes

Had a great practice today and yesterday. I've gotten rid of the mirror that I have in my room that I look at too much most of the time during practice. There is a difference...I can feel it. It makes my practice so much more centred and internal. I think I need to ban mirrors from now on...;)


Due to pure laziness I've been stopping mostly at the end of primary series..I do add in some quad and shoulder stretches and loads of UD to make sure I don't lose my backbends though. Facing kapotasana on a daily basis is a little too much for me to handle..so I skip;P

Instead I've been doing an assortment of crim arm balances like parsva bakasana, koundinyasana etc. I figure it could help my bandhas..who knows.

I've realized something lately about my jumpbacks though..which is pretty close to a revelation to me. Its probably pretty obvious to everyone else, but for the perennially bandha challenged person like me, it was quite a discovery. Now..I've managed on occasion to somehow or other jumpback from sitting. Other times I just lift and swing..hit the floor and then bunny hop back. Recently though, I remembered J said to me to keep pushing the hips upwards even if the feet hit the floor, and I end up almost standing up before hopping back. Well, I've been doing that whenever I get stuck and really lifting the hips and pushing the hands downwards.


So...the past 2 days, I've kinda built some muscle memory into the body to do that under all circumstances..whether my feet hit the floor or not..and I've actually managed to FLOAT my jumpbacks!!! I mean I managed one of those actual floaty ones ala Lino Miele instead of the quick and dirty swing and throw myself backwards variety of jumpbacks...HOW INCREDIBLE IS THAT???? I mean I never thought I'd be able to come close...Of course I can only do that once or twice before getting stuck again...but this is a start and I'm really excited!

So I figure that appears to be the answer to my short arms and long torso problem. I've always thought to squeeze myself into as tight a ball as possible to swing through the arms backwards...now I realise if I can get the lift upwards, the length of my arms don't even come into play..its core strength/bandha. So THATS what they are talking about...how come it took me so long to figure it out???