Saturday, November 7, 2009

Snow!

First snow of the year yesterday! Went to MEC today and got snowboots...

Yoga with A today. We strapped up our knees and did several long-hold quad openers to start – all virasana variations – followed by progressively deeper chest/thoracic openers, leaning back over the block with less and less head support. A took my sissy foam blocks away and gave me wooden ones and I was surprised that they were actually more comfortable. I even used them later for my propped versions of samakonasana (sp) and hanumanasana.

The first time I went to A’s class, when we did the splits in the middle of the prasaritas it was disarming. I felt resistant, impatient, slow and even annoyed. Getting into the hips. Those tight old hips. But I’m not good at this. I hate this. Why are we doing this, lol.

Today, I actually enjoyed them! Did my hips magically melt and allow my butt to sink to the ground in a gymnast-type split? No, absolutely not. I blocked those mothers like no tomorrow. But I lifted arms overhead and let myself sink as much as I could manage and it was a great stretch. I’m completely over my pissy, petulant phase with the dreaded splits. I like ‘em now, propped butt, bent knees and all.

A thinks I should be going for heels in kapo…she showed me that I could see my heels just by turning my head (turning my head never occurred to me in a million years but tada, there they are). I’ve been pretty satisfied with toes and the odd ball of my foot but if she thinks I can do it it’s worth a try. Then she let me stand from UD alone today!

I touched head in laghu vajrasana and came back up on my own – nearly hooted I was so excited. First time ever. I think the recent standing from UD must have unlocked some mind-quad connection I had been missing before. I used to be able to get sooooooo close but, if my head touched earth, the bandha disappeared and it was all over.

I had a bit of a “shoulder” breakthrough today…I realized when A was demo’ing shoulder stances that I squeeze my shoulderblades together far too much in ustrasana, which creates this whole mess of congestion in my traps and causes discomfort when I stretch my head and neck back. My sternocleidomastoid (big word alert) muscle on the right side doesn’t like full neck extension. If I slide my shoulder blades just a bit apart and down I can retain the openness in the chest and extend the neck far more comfortably – nice!

2 comments:

Liz said...

Are you doing the James Brown splits? ha!

Seeing your feet in Kapo sure helps me. My teacher tells me to keep my drishti on my nose while going back, but I like to see my feet! Maybe one day I'll be drishti queen, but for now I do whatever gets me there.

good luck!

KMB said...

HAHAHA - I'm totally doing the James Brown splits!

Don't know how I'm going to contain my own funk during the splits now. Will have to scream "Get on up!" and "Huh!"

Seriously, dying - that's hilarious.

Nose dristi sounds hard! I don't think my hands are "aware" enough to find my toes without me seeing them yet. Something to shoot for though - thanks for the good luck wishes!