yo

Stopped practicing for 4 days now. Thanks to my sister's wedding. InsyaAllah will start practising Primary tonight. Will sleep early as well to wake up early and practice. I want to try to lead a discplined ashtanga life. Gee that sounds cultish but you know what I mean.

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.

Home Practicee

Have not been doing yoga since last Friday, until yesterday.

Decided to give my body a rest. Especially my shoulders and arm. I have been pounding on them for a long while now. With physio, chiro and Sunday - a painful massage. That was good though. I do feel a little bit better.

Yesterday was really enjoying my ashtanga but had to cut it short due to my sister wanting to have dinner with me. I did up until Janu Sirsasana C. I finished with Supported Shoulderstand, with towels and blankets folded and lined up along the top of my shoulders. It did feel easy on the neck, and though when I tried the Urdhva Padmasana and onwards I began to feel the weight bearing so I stopped. NO MORE.

Today I planned to do the full sequence, and continue to work on my forearm glide and pump and vertical hold. And then some camel poses and Wheel against the wall thing.

Variation

Intro class today. As usual I enjoyed it but now I'm thinking into re-looking my practice. Doing the other hatha class and the yin class has kinda make me feel that maybe I should diversify my practice so my body does not get pounded too much too often. God knows I am prone to repetitive stress injuries.

Also, I think doing Intro is making me hard to not stay humble. It's different form mysore class, where I am a beginner, and I wasn't focused on anyone else, but doing Intro made me compare myself against others. I can't help it; it's just the competitive gene in me. I think a normal home practice would suffice.

I'm a paying member of 2 classes per week, and I can't decide whether I want to do the inversion classes or maintain one intro class or do a yin and a hatha.

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: Ashtanga

Wednesday: Ashtanga and Yin

Thursday: Hatha

Friday: Ashtanga

Saturday: Run, swim or cycle

Sunday: Cycle and Ashtanga

Still doing Viparita Karani as inversions. Dabbled with a bit of Halasana today, nothing major. Modified my fish.

Working on opening my back at the same time. It's not coming - doing the Wheel against the wall still felt stiff and achy. I do not want to push into it, do not want my lower back to hurt of all the places. Will work on doing Camel pose and Bow pose and Cobra. As well as my Forearm pump and glide, vertical hold, etc.

Namaste!

Youtube Teachers

Been following and enjoying youtube channel of a favorite online yoga teacher of mine - Esther Ekhart. I first found her when I was googling for Crow pose tutorial and she gave a very comprehensive preparation on how to do a safe crow pose. I ended up following Jason Crendell's tutorial but kept coming back to Esther because her videos are always good, relaxing and now i only realize the benefits of preparations.

My current favorite teachers: Sadie Sardini, Esther Ekhart, and Kathryn Budig and Jason Crendell. I also like Kino, but who doesn't?

My body feels tired and spent today. I really think it's yin yoga yesterday. We held the pose for 5 minutes and some poses were painful... good painful.

Yesterday was also my Ashtanga LED and it was good. I worked on my breathing and it is coming along beautifully.

falling in love again

I have fallen in love with yoga again, even with ashtanga.

Been starting over again with my practice. This time I'm taking other classes as well, just to balance out the demanding rigors of ashtanga. A normal and basic hatha class, and a yin class. It was nice. I have accepted the fact that my ashtanga practice will never be the same - never be able to do the same finishing sequence again. But I think this is what my yoga means to me. A means of self discovery and development, a practice where I can find a balance between loving my self, honoring my body and respecting my capabilities.

I have asked and researched and this is what I deduced:

Never an unsupported shoulderstand again. I have to do it propped on a blanket.

Half plough pose.

Knees to head, supported.

Lotus supported.

Fish supported.

All this until my neck are healed. Maybe in March.

Relearning Yoga

I have to re learn my yoga. In doing that, I have to relearn my ego.

Got my MRI results. I have a disc herniation at the c5 and c6, which basically means I have a slipped disc at those two places. Thanks to alll the endless finishing sequences I did - the embryo the plough, the knees to ear thingy. I felt it on my neck - no pain just pressure, but that was enough to cause the rupture of the sac, especially when I do it everyday for more than 5 counts of breathing. My only consolation is that it isn't bad enough to affect my nerve. That's when it will get real bad for me.

So. I have to re adjust my yoga practice. Especially my Ashtanga. I have become addicted, reliant and dependable on it. I LOVE - still do - the finishing sequence because it is something I am good at. But I guess for the sake of my body I have to learn to how do them without hurting my body. Ahimsa - do no harm, right?

I will have to so a modified

- shoulderstand: with blankets aligned to the top of my shoulders.

- plow pose: with blankets aligned.

- fish pose: bolster.

And then I will continue with the exercise as mentioned in this article:

- plank glide

- plank pump

- vertical hold: dolphin plank to half headstand.

- headstand support: without legs, with legs