Bhujaaaa

Tuesday: What a great choice, I took a vinyasa flow with Seane C, a class that concentrates on hips hips and hips. We warmed up with sun salutations a and b, and got started. It was hard! We did the fire hydrant pose first on knees which was hard enough as it is and then standing. I failed those... could not even lift up my leg! We moved to reverse lunge, a lot of warrior 2, triangle pose, bound side pose, then onto the low deep lunges for long holds. That was insane... it was just mental. We also did supine gomukhasana.

Wednesday: Full Primary... with modifications. No chaturanga... only once or twice... or thrice, can help it, but mostly I just did full plank. My current issue on the practice now is Bhujapidasana. It's funny, isn't it. This wasn't an issue for me from the starting but once you sort of get deeper you realize there are ways to deepend the pose and that's when you fail. Trying hard to get the descent down on Bhuja, as well as the transition from titibhasana to bakasana AND jump back. It's hard because I get so sweaty my legs slipped off my arms. Will have to wear pants when I practice. At least legs wont slip easily down in Kukutasana too.

Lovely practice, and now finding myself looking back forward for the udrvha dhanurasana. As always, the first three was a serious one, then the last 2 a more relaxed, stay as long as I could. Less pain on the back, if I took the time to properly lift up following noah m awesome awesome advice. Then for fun I did one dwi pada viparita dandasana. Feels good, can feel it stretching my upper back.

My left shoulder feels doubly sore right now. Have to carefully not push myself so hard on Friday.

Leg and Neck Stretch

I woke up not in the best feeling today. Scheduled in a run but body (or mind) wasnt feeling up to it. So I started with Dice's surprisingly very gentle leg flow, aimed to stretch the hips area to release stress. I didn't really feel any difference (my work problems are still there) but I do feel better, just knowing that I've done something to release the psoas and hip flexors. It was a lot of lunges, variation of lizard pose stretching to the side, virabhadrasana 2 with reverse virabhadrasana that burns the legs. Some utkatasana variation, and happy baby pose. It climaxes at the pigeon pose. Which was done a bit differently.

Then I continued with Tiffany's shoulder and neck stretch, which was INTENSE. I do not know what is it with her classes - they make me fidgety and uneasy. I guess because both classes I did with her was on the shoulders and neck, and obviously those are the body parts of mine that have the most issues (disc herniation   at C5 and C6) and carry the most stress. The side neck stretch, particularly on the right side was torturous. I surrended earlier in the poses than I would have, it was that uneasy. It wasn't painful or excruciating, I just feel uneasy. I kept imagining someone slicing through the exposed, stretched part of my neck. How's that for creeping myself out of the pose. She mentioned something really nice along the class, trying to keep our attention from the effort. She said something about having the option to take the neck out from our attention, and focus on other body parts instead. And when you let go of the tension, choose not to acknowledge it, it disappears. How right... but somehow this time my inner discomfort won.

 I've also decided that I'm going to pare down my Ashtanga for the next one week. I'm going to do a simpler version of no chaturanggas and skipping the bhujapidasana if I felt like it. My left infrasupinatus and teres minor still are achey. Really sore. Sometimes they burn. and tingle.

 Anyway, good classes today. Those two are my two favorite teachers now.

Wednesday usuals

As usual, LED Primary was good. I tried to focus on my breathing but did not somehow get to concentrate much. Bhujapidasa was ok, not worse, but could be better. At one point I could feel the jump back happening, but did not deliver to the end. I could feel the result of working on the Lolasana though. This time my Garbha Pidasana was better, but still forgot to count how many times I rolled. My Upavistha Konasana has improved. My backbend has improved!

I did Chakrasana, but still too scared to do Setu Bandhasana. Wheel still hurts... can't wait till it becomes easier.

Yin class was good. We did lots of hip opening poses, of which I did the night before. The teacher said it's too work on the spleen and stomach meridian. We did Lizards pose, low pigeon - or sleeping swan pose. And a variation of bent legs and lay back all the way. Feels good.

Now I'm in need of a gooood back - upper back - massage.

Tuesday Hip openers

Tuesday Yoga was fun. But I wish I had worked up the sequence before, saves time and effort of looking at the books mid pose.

I did the Surya Namaskara A and B (5 and 3 respectively), and all the standing positions in Primary. I like this idea of still working on Primary without actually working on Primary, if you get what I mean. A nice prep for my maybe future 6-days a week practice.

Then I started with bits and pieces from home practice:

downward dog (5 br)

triangle, dd

bound side angle, dd

locust, dd

half moon

king dancer

downward dog

then working on hip release:

crescent lunge,

lizards pose,

rock the baby,

thread the needle (hip version)

pigeon pose

angie's yoga pose, where the shins are on top of each other and I lean forward. that feels good.

Working on alignment next, basic twists and roll up and happy baby.

Then backbend prep:

sphinx

baby cobra

full cobra

locust

flying locust

camel against the wall

then upper back arch on a chair.

It was then I started to feel realllly dizzy. I feel like puking.

Savasana. Nevertheless, it was good work.