Two Years...

320 Mysore Style practices.


Sweet practice this morning with a free standing Tiriang Mukhottanasana.


* * *

I proclaim this upcoming year for me: the year of Lolasana.
I will get my butt off the ground.

589/312: Contorture.

Torture.
Contortion.

Two sides of the coin. Same practice.

Prelude to an Epitome

December has been quite puckish.


Between travel, the Kino workshop here in DC and then being thwalloped by bronchitis.

Not your normal run of the mill bronchitis. Bronchitis that laid me up in bed after dragging myself to and from work in denial that I was actually able to breathe. Then there was the snow day which I decided to practice - after being in bed for 4 days watching Lost, sleeping and drinking soup and tea. Initially I had planned to just do primary. Then I did one more pose, then one more pose and before I knew it, I had practiced my entire sequence. Felt great until about 2 hours later when I had absolutely no energy and passed out for the remainder of the day. Save for the Monday before Christmas, 5:30 am practice did not happen at all last week.

A little research provided a "bronchitis" sequence in LOY - after emailing Spirited C, she recommended the "pneumonia" sequence. Something about Iyengar's sequences really not being for mere mortals let alone someone who is sick. After seeing the immunity sequence that was put together for RIMYI when Pune was hit by H1N1 this past summer, I'm inclined to agree. For those curious, the bronchitis sequence includes such therapeutic poses as supta vajrasana, kapotasana, and dwipada viparita dandasana.

I was bummed that I couldn't immediately put everything from the Kino workshop into practice. From the strength work that can easily be incorporated into a sequence, to alignment recommendations for my 2d series poses. Sure, I have notes, they are nowhere near as copious as I woudl prefer, but they do provide mental note - and there is always hopefully body/sensory memory. I've learned this is how I truly remember things. I did practice the pneumonia sequence on my own for a few days last week, slowly incorporating some backbends and more of the bronchitis sequence - and have somehow come out of this feeling a lot stronger.

Needless to say, and much to my discernment, have kept myself to primary all week and have tempered practice a bit, no need to go crazy right?

Although, yesterday for my last mysore style practice of 2009 (520/273), I did sneak in pasana and krounchasana and D easily assisted me to my calves in tiriang mukhottanasana (which was quite a pleasant surprise given how long it's been).

Not a bad way to end the year in the least.

495/261: Smooth Sunday.

One of those Sundays where I was very tempted to linger in bed, take another day of bed rest from the Friday and Saturday's asthma difficulties - treated with multiple tisanes, water, soup, rest and more episodes of Lost than should probably be watched in one sitting.

SilentSpeaker easily convinced me over GChat to practice - basically reminding me that I could stop at any point I wanted to - my original plan was to go simply do Primary. Breath came so rhythmically almost like a metronome, each pose floated into another. I ended up easily smoothly practicing through laghu vajrasana and as I move to backbends D comes over and adds kapotasna a and kapotasna b. Very surprised and excited by this - still trying to work on the illusive "stall" thing when transitioning between ustrasana, laghu and kapotasana.

Thinking maybe break dancing lessons next..
or maybe give capioera another shot...

After three long holds in urdhva dhanurasana, three quick standing to dropbacks and immediately into assisted, and down half way on the last drop, D grabs my wrists and firmly plants my hands right to the lower calves. Of course, my hands slipped down a bit, and heels came up a teeny tiny bit - but oh, that hold was glorious.

There's been a bit of a return to backbending work in the cybershala - and after this morning's fairly successful exploration of tiriang mukhottanasana (LOY 418-9) decided to see where things are in the backbending department.

Started with a little chair work from Iyengar class, really working to try to get the pelvis tucked, extension through the front body, spine deep into the backbody, and lots of rotation through the shoulders.



And then of course, a little play with urdhva dhanurasana and dropbacks.