V-Day workout! Pure Love

Yesterday was a lovely night. It was Valentine's day, and what made it sweeter was my husband asked me out for a run. Can you believe it? I agreed to the idea because I have always loved starting my primary series with more than just a surya namaskara warmup. Sometimes my legs have yet to warm up and that causes the hamstrings to get tight.

After the run I skipped doing a complete 5 rounds of surya namaskara, doing only one each. I started fast. Standing poses were light and easy, I felt no deep struggle than the usual. Utthita Eka Padasana as expected, gave me a workout on the right leg lifted up, I have no idea why. Getting into the seated poses it was good, just a slight resistance in Janu Sirasana B, mary d was okay. I wasn't as strong to deliver Bhujapindasana, but my Supta Kurmasana was near perfect! I crossed my ankles and the legs naturally lifted off and over my head. My Garbha Pindasana was okay, but my Kukkutasana took me a couple of tries, which I wasn't happy, but I didn't push it. I wanted to attempt to do a Chakrasana... but the fear over my neck stopped me. I have to develop my upper body strength first to attempt this.

finishing sequence as usual - modified shoulderstand, plough, ear to knees, lotus ear to knees, and fish. I managed to do 2 wheel pose though, after a warmup by doing bridge. And then I worked on the forearm glides and pumps and dolphin pose to strengthen my shoulders.

After savasana, I worked on my backbends - camel pose, modified kapotasana, bridge and on a chair upper backbend. I also worked on the modifed handstand. It was good work and I am happy.

I feel like wanting to take it slow with my backbend, just playing around with the poses until I am fully open in the back. I also need to take my time in jump back and jump throughs - more lolasana.

I am happy with my practice. It keeps me grounded.

Disproportionate ME

Yesterday night was home practice. Skipped Mysore class because I felt super tired, wouldn't do good to push myself that morning. Come evening and I was itching to exercise.

This time I did not cheat - a half vinyasa every single side and pose. I skipped the full vinyasa... maybe if I really want to burn more I would do the full vinyasa after Kukkutasana. I found that it gets easier when you don't think too much about the tiredness of it all.

One thing I realized: I have a shorter arm at my right side. I only realized it when I was doing Wheel and trying to straighten my arms and my left side was not fully straight. And when I tried doing the preparatory pose of a putting your head on the floor with your hands cradling your head, my right elbow did not quite reach the floor. I tried doing the modification of Kapotasana, and the same thing. My left arm reaches the wall first, which made the bending back difficult cause I was misaligned.

I would have to ask my teacher about this.

So, home practice: My jump through have improved somewhat. I probably nailed a near perfect jump through 60% of the time. My jump back needs more work, especially the swing through. I need to keep in mind that I should use the swinging momentum (just like in Bhujapidasana) to send my legs through and back. Sometimes it happened; most of the time it didn't. But I wasn't stressing. I have come to learn that in yoga, like any other poses, all you need is practice practice and practice.

As usual struggled a little bit in Utthita Hasta Padanghustasana and the next pose following it. It's just so hard to keep things balanced while keeping your lifted foot pointed. I nailed Bhujapindasana this time... need to work on keeping my feet off the floor while lifting up. I managed to put my feet behind my head sitting up in Supta Kurmasana, but wasn't able to go fully down.

I didn't do headstand... promised myself not to do it until after I get myself checked. But I did the preparatory pose; the Dolphin. Just to strengthen my shoulder. Skipped Setu Bandhasana too, and did the Bridge instead. When I did the Wheel, the disproportion of my arm startled me - especially after I tried other backbending poses. Right now reading up on articles of how to warm your body up to do backbend. Didn't know I have a stiff upper back.

Maybe a Mysore class tomorrow? I don't know...