On Why Bakasana and Sirsasana Rocks

Tonight will be my first class with my teacher after her 3 weeks break. I can't wait! I owe it all to her for introducing me to Ashtanga. She was already a great teacher when I went to her studio 2 years back. I remember her Hot yoga classes were to die - or to sweat - for. One of her poses that I love is what she calls the Cheongsam - where you lean back on your heels and lift your body off them a few inches. Really works your quads!

Yesterday night I was itching to do some yoga but was too tired after work, preparing dinner, etc. So what I did was just 3 Surya Namaskara A, and my favorite Bakasana and Salamba Sirsasana. I also added Titibhasana just to further work on my wrists.

I do not know why I love Bakasana and Salamba Sirsasana so much, but let me try to dissect:

1) Maybe because Bakasana is one of the most recognizable Yoga poses for me. I think I've seen it to represent Yoga since I was first interested in it. And it looks easy - just balance on your arm, but whenever I tried to do it I couldn't. When Angie made us do it, only Yana could and I didn't even bother to try. I knew I would fall on my face.

But since it's a requisite pose for Primary Series, I got obsessed with trying. I think I practiced it everyday until I got the hang of the mechanics. My husband was right - it's all about knowing how the poses work. And until now it's one of my favorite poses to do, mostly because I work hard for it!

2) Salamba Sirsasana was one of those poses you think you could NEVER ever do in your life... until you tried it once and it was EASY. Your legs just lift up as if they were made of air. That's how it was for me, and I got cocky. I did it everyday, love it until today. But somewhere in the middle I was trying to fine tune the pose (to make my body to be 90 degrees vertical) and I fell backwards a few times. I think that shattered my confidence and right now I'm slowly working on doing the pose with some sort of a support a couple feet behind my back. I know I shouldn't mentally depend on the support but I think it is safer for me. My neck hurts for days when I fell off doing Sirsasana. I trust that time will take care of itself and the perfect pose will come.

I've told you that my target list for 2012 is to:

1) master Jump Throughs and Jump Backs

2) Do a good Setu Bhandasana and Wheel Pose

3) Half Moon Pose

4) Try a Mysore class

if I can do them by Q2, I would be happy but I have no expectations.

Till then!