Best. Practice. Ever.

Got my left leg to stay behind my head for the first time! Yay! Probably won't be repeating that feat anytime soon since it came after a lot of warming up the hips, which I was able to do only because the Good Doc had already left. Which brings me to the fact that it was also the GRUMPIEST. Practice. Ever.

When I got off the train this morning in Harlem, I decided to hop into a cab, thinking that it would get me to practice faster. Unfortunately, my driver just got his license yesterday, it seems. He took me down a wrong one-way street such that we ended up heading uptown on First Avenue when we should have been heading downtown on York, the end result being that I had to walk 10 blocks and an avenue to practice. I arrived with a mere 65 minutes to get all the way to Eka Pada.

Not that I couldn't have split. But don't like to split. I need my Supta K now more than ever, because after 10 breaths in the pose, I now push up to a full Dwi Pada, hands in prayer, five breaths, then press up for five breaths, then Titthibasana for five breaths. It all adds up to a better Eka Pada. Hopefully. I mean, even the Good Doc told me it would. He's the one who told me to do it in the first place. That an 108 breaths in Shoulderstand, Halasana, Headstand and Padmasana.

Anyway, I was disgruntled and muttering to myself as I walked those 10 long blocks and one avenue, thinking, "This isn't working, I can't keep doing this." When I arrived at the studio I was about to tear the girl at the desk a new asshole about how my credit card had been charged twice in one month for my shala fees when the GD came out to ask for a first aid kit. Long story short, someone had taken a nose dive in Bujapidasana. Not my problem. What WAS my problem was the fact that it was downright WINDY in the practice room. I grumbled my way through Surya Namaskar A, sweating and shivering at the same time (heat from the inside, meeting cold on the outside...blech. This isn't SUPPOSED to be a gym, you know).

Then I paused between salutations, marched over to the thermostat and simply shut it off.

You could hear it spin to a stop. You could hear the wind die down. You could see dust particles landing. Someone said "Thank you." And someone else exhorted me: "Lauren!" But GD was still with Buja Roadkill, so he couldn't stop me. HA!

In my anger and annoyance and general disgruntledness, I somehow managed to have this amazing practice. Light, floaty, bhandas, bendy, the works.

I found a way to stop worrying and learn to love the bomb, so to speak. I realized that the blessing inherent in the GD's leaving the room at 9 a.m. crossed with my inability to get there before 7:45 adds up to the thing I love the most: Ashtanga Criminality.

Yes, I engaged in some major criminality today. After everyone left, it was just me and EVP, and together, we did all of Second. HAHAHAHAHAHA! And we rocked it. The Seven Headstands! All of it. Well, not Karandavasana. I did a Tripod Headstand/Lotus Legs Lowered to the Arms thing, what is it, Urdhva Kukutasana? Whatever. Who cares?

I feel great! And now I have the will to practice in the Upper East Side Icebox once again!

YC