Practice notes, Kino workshop

Last weekend, on a whim, I booked a flight to Toronto...Kino workshop! On Friday night, I headed to AYC Toronto for the demo, chanting and discussion. I haven't visited many shalas, but I immediately felt right at home in this one. It was cozy and had nice natural light...reminds me of my usual practice space.

Day 1 - demo...breathtaking. She did deep backbends, arm balances, LBH, twists...everything. Stunning!

After the demo was done, she wrapped herself in a shawl and proceeded to tell us that strength had always been her biggest challenge. I don't know why, but that made me feel relieved. There is hope! Strength was a theme we came back to again and again through the workshop.

"Strength is a decision you make"...every time you phone it in, you miss an opportunity to build strength. Every time you back away from an edge, you stand still. When you stay stuck in your comfort, you stop moving.

At first glance that might seem pretty darn close to "progress" and "linear" and "goal-oriented" but that's not the point she was making at all...or not the point I interpreted. She said when you encounter new, difficult, challenging, sometimes frightening situations on the mat, it's like a "laboratory" for life. Your response here will mirror your response in the real world. If you choose to acknowledge your discomfort, set it aside and move into the new/scary/challenging territory, you're building strength of character and not just strength in the body. It's not always supposed to feel good and warm and fuzzy and pretty...yeah doing your practice should make you FEEL GOOD, but working on yourSELF and your flaws and your deeply ingrained behavioral traits is not always going to be a walk in the park. Loved it, loved it as a metaphor for life and also as something I will be taking with me into my practice.

She mentioned that from early on asana demonstrates to us that the impossible is possible. So the very thing that looks insane to us in the beginning, we're doing it before we know it. Simply by facing it every day. The physical transformation in asana opens us to the personal transformation in yoga.

Day 2 - Mysore class. This was a large group so we were asked to stagger our times a bit. She also said we should practice the "series you want me to help you with". I was relieved. Because my background is a little different from many, I was a bit nervous about what to do for mysore - cognizant of the fact that a couple of my trouble spots would be where many others would be stopping and working, not moving on.

I did my 2nd and I'm glad I did. Despite the size of the crowd, I was adjusted in pretty near everything I had really hoped to get some help on. For a few asanas I waited quite a long time but I didn't even mind. There was an incredibly adept yogi in front of me and I was treated to an amazing display when I was waiting for an adjustment for several minutes! Turns out it was a teacher at AYCT, the hosting studio. Unreal!

On my last assisted backbend, she asked "Do you touch your heels?" and I said no but I went back and she asked me to walk them in and I touched. I could hardly believe it. So cool!

The afternoon session was all about strength so we worked on the foundation of a strong torso in a plank or other inversion...fingers, hands, chest, shoulders, abs, pelvis...and jumping back and through. We were given the same instruction as was given in ArkieYogini's blog, to bend the arms and walk the feet back. For the toe-tappers out there! I put it to work right away. Then we paired up and worked on floating up in sirsasana and piking to handstand (assisted).

Day 3 - Led primary. Two hours. Stick a fork in me, I am DEAD. Dropped my own ass in kukkutasana AND utpluthi. I was TOASTITOS.

Afternoon was all about backbending. We worked through the foundation of a supported backbend, with tucked pelvis, firm abs sucked in to spread the organs and make the waist small. Ribs up and out (serratus anterior?) with supporting muscles at work. Sternum up then raise arms...we paired up for assisted UDs and dropbacks.

Highlights, for me, were:
- the jumpback tips (hopefully one day the shuffleback will be a true jumpback)
- the surprising backbend assist she gave me
- the idea of strength as a choice I will make each time I practice

Shuffleback

So…the shuffleback is like one baby step after the lean forward. I place my hands as though I were going to do a real jumpback, haul my butt back as far as it can go and wherever my feet land, I launch from there back to chaturanga. I do it in both Mysore and Led now. It builds a bit of strength (compared to the lean forward) and doesn’t slow me down too much. The lean forward is way faster though.

The steps I read, advice I have been given, and what I’ve learned from watching others in my studio (only one person in the studio can actually do it!) is that I need to bend the arms to draw my shoulders down and my hips up, counterbalance-wise.

My brain refuses to give this instruction to my arms!! Does. Not. Compute. Is it fear? It has to be fear. When I don’t understand why something doesn’t work, it is fear. Not a conscious fear, but that innate, human, don’t-want-to-break-my-face fear that takes over your limbs. My mind has some serious work to do to convince my body.

I have a weak bhujapidasana, and I am pretty sure the two are related. If I could confidently, slowly move myself into bhuji (sans head-thump) maybe I would trust my arms and allow them to bend. Been working on this.

The shuffleback also feels nicer than it looks, ahahaha, but you can’t win them all. It evens out with my less-than-atrocious wormthump this weekend :-)

Off

Every day is so different! Sunday's practice felt just...off. I was feeling a cold coming, and I debated skipping but I decided to go and hammer through thinking (hoping) that a practice might just annihilate the thing.

It was the fastest practice I've ever done. The Sunday class is no spoken instruction, no counts, just breathing and moving in unison (or trying). Which generally means we default to the fastest breath count, which was soooooo fast yesterday. Then we tacked on the back half of intermediate. After Mayurasana (which was nothing to write about, believe me) I decided to do a long slow close and take a long savasana, waiting for the others to finish. I've never tapped out early like that, I think it was a combo of the cold and the speed. I was just spent.

I just don't think that kind of practice is for me. I focus too much on others (the breath and movement of others, not the asana) and am unable to find my own breath and get into a rhythm. I land in an asana, and by the third breath I am thinking about exiting it and keeping up with the pack in the next vinyasa (which also eliminates the opportunity for the shuffleback, which was coming along so well, even in Led).

I will give it a couple more tries but I don't know. I think it is just too fast for me.

Hoping Led tomorrow will be better...the beauty of the practice is we get a new day and another try!

Shuffleback comes to Led

I love primary. Love.It. Just do!!

I hadn't planned to do the shuffleback (my awkward pickup/slog-jam the feet back/hop to chaturanga) in Led for a while. But today there seemed to be an extra nanosecond between the end of asana and the beginning of vinyasa...which made the shuffleback fit. In my mind J was accommodating me with her counts...but maybe instead my mind was accommodating my practice. Either way, the shuffleback lasted until the end of Marichyasana C. And either way, I know J was happy that I tried, because she kindly fixed the front of my eQua in the middle of a downdog (it gets all messed up when I shuffleback, as my feet don't clear the mat). She has no patience for mat/towel/asana fussing, so it is pretty nice of her to mat/towel/asana fuss on my behalf.

Notables: lotus in sarvangasana without hands is now consistent. J is holding a workshop on Saturday and I am planning to ask about the sirsasana modification for Karanda. I like to do this in my home practice and I'm curious what she thinks, but I imagine it won't be acceptable in the studio (which is fine). I also have questions on Mayurasana.

The week continues to improve!