Furry Wombat

Practice this morning was good.  Kara was teaching today (it’s Wed), and I got an adjustment in prasarita padottanasana C.  I’ve been worried about this adjustment for a while b/c the AC joint in my left shoulder has been tender for quite a while.  I’ve also been convinced that my hands must be more than a foot off the ground because my shoulders are tighter (I used to be easily adjusted to hands on ground).  Well!  The adjustment helped.  I didn’t fight it or even try too hard to make my shoulders do the “right thing” (more on this in a minute), and, lo and behold, my hands touched the ground.  Now, some of weight had come out of my feet, but still!  I was surprised.  And no ill effects from the adjustment — might even feel better.  Yay!  So, practice was pretty normal, backbends felt a bit better than Monday, the IT bands and psoas are going to take a while to loosen back up.   And, inspired by Patrick (who seems to have had a breakthrough reflected in his blog lately!), I did some ashtanga style pranayama today after uth pluthi.  He blogged about his recent intensive with Tim Miller and reminded me of a retreat I did in ’06 with Tim, where I learned the first few pranayama techniques.

So, what is the “right thing” to do with the shoulder in prasarita paddotanasana C and, perhaps, purvottanasana, the marichyasanas, and pashasana: (i) open and back, (ii) rolled forward and under, or (iii) some middle way (why do I know that (iii) is right?!).  To explain, in the standing inhale before folding forward for prasarita paddotanasana C, one could (i) pull the hands down toward the ground and roll the shoulders forward or (ii) pull the scapulae together in the back and open the chest by rolling the shoulders back.  I think I used to do more of (ii) but have been corrected to do more of (i).  Anyway, I was thinking (i) today during the adjustment and that seemed good.  However, adjustments in Mari C often seem to emphasize chest opening, so  tend to respond by rolling should up and back, rather than down and forward.

In other news, a dear friend called me today and told me she was getting a divorce.  20 years.  wow.  She and her now-ex both seem to be well, but it’s still sad.

I leave to see H tomorrow afternoon.

I arrived at the studio about 6:30.  Tight again, after diving on Friday and riding on Sat.  I really should have practiced on Sun, but could only drag myself from bed to couch and wish my dad a happy father’s day.  (My dad is awesome.)  Also, I talked to my brother, who I’ve been playing phone tag with since I returned from the NWHI.  He sounded good, which is really excellent, because he didn’t for a while there.  Anyway, my hamstrings were a little tight, but it’s really my ACLs — I think that’s from the cycling.

It felt like a normal practice:  a little too much effort and too much wandering mind, but that’s (sadly) normal for me.  After doing a couple dropbacks/ups that felt ugly, I asked CL for an assist to try to get me to lift up more before going back.  It helped, but it will take some time for the backbends to feel fluid again.  Part of what drove me away from practice last year was shoulder issues, and they have only gotten tighter in the time away.   And my hip flexors got tighter with all the cycling.  And my quads just burn through the backbends.  So, yes, it will be a while before this all feels good again.  There was a time that I surprised myself and touched my heels in a backbend.  It will be a while before that happens again!

As for shoulder issues, that’s been pretty good.  I still have some pinching in my left AC joint and some crunching in my right shoulder, but eh.  I’ve been sitting in front of the computer all day, periodically flexing my rhomboids (pulling my scapulae into my back).  When I did PT last year, it turns out that that weakness in my rhomboids was a potential cause of my shoulder issues (letting the scapula pull away from the back when I raise my arm, thereby crunching the top of the shoulder joint).  Needless to say, I have been keeping that in mind during practice.  The trick is to pull in the scapulae without sticking the chest out.  It’s pretty subtle — at least for me with my underdeveloped rhomboids.

I did a brief (50 breath) sit at the end of practice after uth pluthi.

Tomorrow, I’ll have to start earlier to be sure I make my 9am meeting.

If I were brave, I would step off the moving sidewalk.  I dream of large gardens, pygmy goats, chickens, canning, worms, earth.  But the moving sidewalk is propelled by proposals, self-promotion, academic angst, deadlines, performance.  I tire of living in my head and on the computer.  I want to be animal.  I will be animal in death.  Why not sooner?

H called late last night.  We tucked each other in and stayed on the phone on as we went to sleep.  He wants to play for a few days when I get there before we talk about stuff.  That’s good, actually, and we have some adventures in mind.  A friend of ours is having a big retirement party next Saturday, so we are planning to bike out to Sonoma for the party (~70mi).  And we have designs on kayaking on the Carson River with a good friend of H’s.  I need some not-work-related adventures, so I’m looking forward to this.

In other adventures, my friend from Virginia responded, and it looks like the Blue Ridge adventure is on.  I could always rent a car, but I’m hoping that we can finish building out my new bike while I’m in CA so I can take it with me.  I hope H will come, too.

Four dives off Barbers Pt today.  I needed a nap when I got home.

Will go see H on Thursday as planned.   Would rather go sooner.  Like, tomorrow.

Fireworks tonight, like every Friday night.

Ladies holiday, such as it is.  I’ll take it.

Nice sunset.  Difficult day.  A graduate student in our department who was working in Australia died suddenly.   H is selling the boat he bought for me.  I’m not sure he wants to play with me anymore.  He’s not sure either.  I’m very sad.  And  scared.

Already my hamstrings are more open than yesterday. I stayed with the breath until the janu sirsasanas, when I dove into a pretty negative head space.  This often happens somewhere in forward bends.  I worry about something, and I can feel the worry make me weak.  (You know how that happens in movies — fight scene, clutch moment, the antagonist identifies the central weakness in the protagonist, the protagonist has a moment of self-doubt, weakens,  and loses the fight).  So, I try to observe it as a bodily experience rather than fight it or identify with it and breathe on.  Today that worked pretty well.  And the desperation had mostly passed by the end of the marichyasanas.  I was also starting to get tired by the end of forward bends — it will take me a couple weeks for my endurance to return — and I had to be more conscious about bhandas for jump backs and jump throughs.  When I get tired, I take all the hits in my upper body, which isn’t good for the touchy shoulders.

At kurmasana, CL told me to wait for the adjustment for supta kurmasana.  The waiting was good.  I noticed how tense and shaky my legs were and relaxed (as I typed that, I noticed how tense my shoulder were and relaxed them, too).  They would tense up again, and I would relax them again.  I tried to keep that in mind for the next few poses and get to that easy place before the end of my five breaths.  Geez, just like everything else in life.  Expansion/contraction.

Thoughts of adventure.  I read a friend’s blog tonight — I haven’t seen him in years (they moved east, I moved west), but he’s a favorite person.  And I thought how nice it would be to see him and his wife.  Then remembered that I will be going to a conference in Knoxville at the end of next month.  And they aren’t that far away… and it’s near the Blue Ridge Mountains… and H just got me a folding bike frame to travel with… and…and now I’m trying to convince H to meet me in Tennessee and ride to see our friends in Blacksburg.  I think it sounds fabulous, but H might take some convincing.  I’m gonna go.

Arrived at the studio around 6:30.  The first two rows were taken, so I placed my mat in the third row, chanted quietly to myself,  and began. I practiced through baddha konasana and moved on to second through laghuvajrasana.  I felt okay, if tight, from a year of more cycling than yoga (hips are tight, but shoulders are more relaxed).  My energy is really shaky/vibratory though.  It will take a little while for that to calm down.  My mind wandered some, but not to ugly places.  Not so bad. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.

***

I’ve always really liked this studio.  It’s only the second studio that I have done Mysore-style for any length of time, other than drop ins while traveling.  It’s friendly and doesn’t feel exclusive.  My practice has been really inconsistent this year, but there’s no judgment.  Just glad to see you.  When someone conquers their fear of dropbacks or does their first tictoc, there will be friendly murmurs of assent.  But this is infrequent enough that it’s not disruptive.  I guess it feels traditional but not fundamentalist.  Practice is available Su-Fr, regardless of moon days, but you are welcome to take them if you choose.    The first place I practiced Mysore-style in Los Angeles was very serious.  And I responded by trying really hard.  Ultimately, this turned into tense and exhausting practices.  It’s taken me a while to chill out about all of it, and I attribute that softening to my current teacher.

Another ridiculous day.  Too much time in front of the computer — some work, some play.  Then I started to read a book just after midnight.  When I put it down, it was after 5am.  I considered staying up for my planned 6am yoga practice…but did not.

In first year after my move, my practice was pretty consistent.  But the past year has been sporadic.

Sometimes, a little external prod is helpful, so I thought I would start this blog.

It will probably be about yoga, cycling, food, and maybe some adventures.  I hope it will not be about work, which already consumes so much of my waking life that it has made me a bit dull.

Here’s to livening things up!