Day 21: Three Weeks Gone.

The flexibility in my hand is not quite back but close, the swelling is minimal, and maybe just a dull ache. All major improvements from 21 days ago. Twenty one days of running the gambit. Initially impetuously halting practice, then tentatively and humbly returning to a modified practice, frustration with not healing faster, and today another return to contentment.

Intuitively I think I'm starting to understand what D has expressed to me on multiple occasions about not mucking about "with all those different types of yoga." Just doing one. Allowing the nuance and intelligence to appear. To some extent, I don't think I was/am allowing that to happen. Sporadically making my way to AYC in fits and spurts - collapsing in sheer exhaustion the day after a class at UnityWoods.

What was I really becoming so hell-bent on getting to?
All in the name of what? Really?

Just as life is really not all about the Benjamins, sometimes I need to remind myself that this is not all about the poses.


Consistency and quality over quantity any day.
The poses are merely markers.

I can begin to see why teachers within any of Krishnamacharya's students' methods tend to ask their students for fidelity. There is a system. Systems are put in place for a reason. The reason only becomes apparent when you actually immerse yourself within that discipline - and usually things happen faster. Work at something with a disciplined approach and shifts will occur.

Go off and play. But return with fervor, perspective, and respect.

Looking at the major branches of asana practice (on face) derived from Krishnamacharya, his students, the fathers of these branches were probably taught in a way specific to their respective strengths and weaknesses. The mark of a brilliant teacher.


Balance needs to be found and the systems should be self regulating - naturally coming to an equilibrium.
That's a lesson learned on the first day of HS chemistry and is still applicable.

Day 19: Follow-up Honesty.

I'm winged and I can't get my friggin' butt off the ground.
Even if I wasn't winged, it would be the same.

Yes, this is the obligatory weekly doom & gloom post.

Day 19: Connectivity & Compartmentalization.

A long, long time ago, back in second semester of my senior year of college, I had the wonderful opportunity to study figure drawing with Bunny Harvey (yes, that is her name). I loved the skeleton project and at home drawing assignments, there was always a way I could conceive of the connections between that and work in architecture studio - something along the lines of Ashtanga and Iyengar - she tenderly nurtured that.

When it came to working in class with our wonderful model Lib, for some reason, unless the cosmos properly aligned I could never get her body to consistently appear as whole.

The top half of her body would be gestured/sketched/rendered well, as would the bottom half. However, probably 50% of the time it looked as though her body had been cut in half and haphazardly sewn back together. (Fwiw, the one day we had a pregnant model that was the one day filled with consistency and thankfully I could align all the seams properly.)

Fast forward to 2005, I decided to take a life drawing course at the Corcoran. Same body sewn in half issue - but much worse - the top and bottom halves of the body might as well have been drawn on two separate newsprint pads.

Instead of torturing myself, the teacher, and the models, I dropped the class.


Plodding my way through primary and sitting in marichyasana-a this morning, shoulders down my back and chin lightly grazing my right knee, I realized something - quite profound. For me, for the most part, the asanas in and of themselves prove little quandary. The micro-muscular movements are there, engagement of the various bhandas while in a pose are there. There is strength and counter forces and intelligent use of flexibility. This is why I probably enjoy Iyengar so much, as most classes/sequences are asana-centric.

Sure I can sit in a pose.

But ask me about vinyasa, I become all left-footed.
Grace flies out the window. There is no connection between my top half and bottom half, let alone the breath of my body.

How do I find connectivity?
Lightness within a dense Eastern European-Anglo female frame?
Movement with breath that's not robotic?

The main reason I started practicing Ashtanga was because of the grace, the vinysasas.

Day 18: Rumination.

Chopin's 200th birthday was March 1.
He passed away at the age of 39 from TB.
What did he accomplish in this time? Many highly complex solo piano pieces.


How does one accomplish so much in so little time?
Would that even be possible in today's society?
Are we suffering modern sensory overload?
Too many distractions coupled with too many things we feel we have to do?


When in reality there are truly only a few simple things at the core...


Practice is the one time of my run-of-the-mill-day where everything else disappears. All that other stuff?
Just evaporates.

* * *

Today practiced my first almost-fully-unmodified primary in almost three weeks now - fairly easily, smoothly.

Maybe a little gingerly - but good ntl.
No thoughts. No whims. No pressure.

Day 17: Equipoise & Convalescence

Checked in with the osteopath last Thursday - with another round of x-rays. All is healing quite nicely - he was actually quite impressed with how much my hand improved in the span of a week. Amazing what following doctor's orders, castor oil wraps and modifying practice will do...


Currently, no splint - just mindfulness. A tiny set-back might have been suffered in the name of the men's national ice hockey team - but a little pain in the name of one's country during the Olympics isn't such a bad thing.

It will still be another week before I can begin to speculate to get back into hand-balancing. That being said, easing back into the groove has been relatively smooth. Somehow I feel a bit stronger for all of this - spent a lot of time working with the core, not relying on the arms and have dialed it back a few notches, maybe found a bit of renewed contentment with practice. Also have discovered some new limits to my body by holding poses longer, focusing on breath and with modification finding a little bit of play. Sure, there is still some lingering aggravation and frustration with not being able to do everything.


But, right now, there is no rush to get anywhere.
Don't get me wrong, by no means am I becoming complacent.

Day 11: Semper Ubi Sub Ubi.

Oldie, but goody.
Must figure out how to pack
from practice to work.



(At least my work is near a Macy's.)

Day 9: Pity Party's Over.

Monday I got off my cranky butt and decided that I was going to actually practice as much of primary in sequence as possible modifying and omitting where necessary.

First roadblock, obviously is at vinyasa 4 = catvāri, chaturanga. Solution?
Return, inhale to halfway lift as in vinyasa 3 trīṇi, exhale, to uttanasana 5 br as adho mukha svanasana. Wonderfully enough - this has worked. The vinyasas actually work out properly so that chaturanga, up-dog and down dog can be omitted. For surya namaskara B? Just step back to virabhandrasana a. Yes it is slightly awkward, but it still works.


Except for pada hastasana, the entire standing sequence is in with various modifications - trikonasana and utthita parsvakonasana have to be slightly modified so that I'm not placing my hand flat on the ground, and working off of the extended leg. Prasarita paddotansana A, arms similar to mukha hasta sirsasana b and for parsvottanasana arms similar to those in prasarita paddotanasana c or just grabbing elbows. If grabbing elbows, working on engagement of intercostals, extending as far out over extended leg as possible.

Transition to floor, step forward move down to pasasana legs, extend one leg out hang there for a breath and very inelegantly plop to the ground.

Poses out from primary completely:
Purvottanasana
That evil lift between Navasanas (really not disappointed about this)
Bhuja Pidasana
Tittibhasana
Bakasana
Lifted Dwi Pada Sirsasana
Sticking the hands though in Garbha Pindasana
Kukkutasana
Chakrasana
Urdhva Dhanurasana
Salambasana
Sirsasana
Utplutih

The remainder of the poses are in - the binds aren't bad as long as I bind on the wrist and use a light grip with my pinky and ring finger. Faux-transitions between poses, lifting half way up from cross legged seated without using arms or from seated knees bent to pasasana legs.

To get my back bend fix, setu bandha sarvangasana (really grounding through the balls of the feet), ustrasana/kapotasna modification of thighs against the wall (working in and up the wall, chest up and over and hang back), and standing hang backs to hold.

Also, Monday night got my inversion fix on the ropes at UnityWoods.
I'm really missing sirsasana and have been unable to come up with a solution/modification that I can easily incorporate without the use of ropes.

Day 6: Simplicity of Practice.

"Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity."
~ Charles Mingus.



Patterns and listening to the subtle body.
The subtle body sits, patiently, as who we are, and yet, we oft deny it for some perceived ideal of who we believe we are and how others see us. It's easier that way.

Many out there in the cybershala and the DC/extended-Cru have reminded of this in their own ways recently - something that Spirited C has gently been trying to teach me over these past couple months, began to sink in with the snowy blizzardy DC weekend in chatting with Aikidoka and has hit me like an ACME anvil dropped from sky with this whole hand thing.

I've had to let go of how I wanted to feel about my practice before I head to Charlottesville in a couple weeks to practice with John Campbell (who has a crazy beautiful backbend). My fears of practicing with Lino Miele in May and Manouso Manos in July, yeah, they're still there. Yes. Things could be worse, much worse - but when mired in personal reality, perspectives are skewed. Honestly, my ego is still smarting some but there's time - where and why am I rushing anywhere?

Honesty in Simplicity.
Allowing the practice itself to be the teacher.

Something that Jois aims at in his 125 page tome and Iyengar himself reiterates over and over in his diffuse writings. Listening. Real time feedback. Observation without judgment and expectation of the Self. There is such a beautiful potential within any practice - there is no reason to fight it - it fits when it is necessary and will hit a point of stasis when necessary within its process.

Day 5: Grabbing at Air

The ace wrap has been removed. But, one more week of a splint with further follow-up again next Thursday. Contrary to what the ER doctor told me, I should be making some use of my hand, opening and closing every once in a while. Still icing but not as feverishly.

Personally, it seems a little silly to me that they still can't tell if there are minor fractures to the distal ends of my metacarpals or if it's just soft tissue damage. Basically, if I still have pain next week, there are probably small fractures in there. If not, all's well that ends well.



The doctor specifically reminded me no handstands - for some reason.

Day 4: Not Soooo Grumbly Wednesday Night.

Actually, a quite successful practice, if I do say so myself (also, having a package from amazon.com to open after practicing definitely helped keep me on track). One thing I realized, just how much truly goes into sequencing. Having gone into practice without a real plan seems to have worked decently, looking at it this morning typed out, it looks to be a hodgepodge of Iyengar classes more than anything else.

(sequence segments are blocked together and as always, if asymmetrical pose, right leg leads, left leg follows, repeated second side)

belly bolster
back bolster

trikonasana - back flush to wall, pelvis curved in, forearm of bottom arm to thigh, front femur rotated into hip socket, line of torso as straight as possible
parivritta trikonasana - face wall, revolve triangle, pelvis level, top shoulder flush to wall using core to pull up
prasarita padottanasana - back against wall, pulling back of pelvis up to wall, torso through legs, arms through legs

trikonasana - free from wall
parivritta trikonasana - free from wall
virabhadrasana I - lengthening back leg straight from socket, squaring pelvis, torso straight up from pelvis
virabhadrasana III - lengthening in opposite directions from lifted foot to upper chest (too my stress on hand extended)
trikonasana

trikonasana
virabhrasana II
utthita parsvakonasana

trikonasana
virabhadrasana II
utthita parsvakonasana
ardha chandrasana - lifted foot on wall, bottom arm lifted from ground by torso
trikonasana

parsvottanasana - extending arms out over leg

ado mukha svanasana - over the back of a chair

urdhva chaturanga

dandasana

pascimottanasana
eka pada virasana - to supta

virasana - to supta - to bolstering shins to drop pelvis "below floor level"

triang mukha eka pada pascimottanasa

janu sirsasana c, b, a - legs and forward fold, no binds

baddhakonasana - sit bones bolstered to ease adductors and gracilii muscles

bharadvajasana

bhujangasana - look ma! no hands!
salambasana a
dwi pada viparita dandasana - supported through folding chair

viparita karani
savasana



And such a good sleep into this morning and off to the osteopath in just a few minutes.

Day 3: Grumbly.

This whole hand thing is a lot more of a challenge than I thought it was going to be.

My sleep has been restless and uncomfortable so practice in the morning hasn't been happening. D was right, there's nothing quite like practice in the morning and I don't think I fully appreciated it until now. Mind you if I practice in the morning, practice in the evening seems to come much easier.

In the morning, there's no stress pent up from the day, no distractions running through my mind, no race to practice in so that I can cook dinner and get to bed at a reasonable hour.



I was whiny yesterday. Really whiny.

It worsened and spiraled over the course of the day. For practice, when I finally slogged myself to my mat, I riffed on Geeta Iyengar's menstrual sequence - figured that would do my mind good. I had nowhere near the necessary mental pliability for either a full on restorative practice or a "regular-modified" practice.



I know I should have gone by pose names - flash card learning and all - but doodles were much easier than writing. The simple exercise of doodling / planning the sequence was in and of itself quite cathartic.

But how I am yearning for urdhva dhanurasana, any inversion, and even bhekasana.





Santosha. Annica. Ishvarapranidhana.
I know. I know. I know.

Day 1: Breaking Down the Ego; Day 2: Exercises in Creativity and Play.

Talk about humility. I didn't realize how much much weight we ask our hands to bear during any practice.

Just look at the primary sequence alone - from balances to binds.

Sunday's winged practice limped along as I half-heartedly muddled my way in and around primary, half distracted by fresh cranberry dark chocolate puddle cookies and general frustration that I don't have my regular practice right now. I've been good - keeping my splint on so I don't use the hand at all.

The better part of the day was spent avoiding my mat, avoiding practice, until I pulled out my practice journal and my copy of Ramaswarmi's Vinyasa Yoga during lunch. Flipping though both I started to see ways I could modify my practice - down dog over the back of a folding chair pressing the forearms into the seat, etc as part of the integration sequence. Spent the majority of the practice exploring forward bends and Ramaswami's triangle sequence with long holds.

If I had to pick the coolest thing from practice today, urdhva chaturanga dhandasana. Just one of those things, no reason not to try right?

Think I've certainly found something to continue to work with - the floor forces the correct pelvic alignment, shoulder and forearm alignment, and extending through the balls of the feet pressing against a wall seems to get deep into my core.


It was actually quite liberating not to be bound by a set sequence or counts. To sit with a pose, to allow the body to dictate what it needs.
Practice without expectation.

To dance instead of fight.

Fall from Grace

10 days. No weight bearing poses - certainly no upside down trees or balancing or dogs. Standing poses and forward bends and hip openers for me.

Lots of ice - at least DC has plenty of that.