I love my practice.

I just thought I would mention that.

The upside to taking so long to really master Supta K is that I have so so so much time to master ALL of Primary. I've watched my proficiency level go steadily up in all the postures, one by one, and my ability to keep vinyasa-ing without falling to the ground with each chatturanga has steadily improved until I am pretty much caught up to my asanas (in other words, I can do every vinyasa up through Garba Pindasana, fairly competently). My sweating has greatly diminished, thanks to giving up my morning cup of coffee. My Mari D is feeling all cozy and squishy again, just like I like it, thanks primarily to not eating at night, and limiting my fluid intake after midnight. Good advice from Sir, all of it.

Today Sir caught me slacking off in Navasana. I laughed out loud. I have NEVER been caught slacking in Navasana. NEVER! And yet, I must slack off in Navasana on a consistent, daily basis. Well, turns out, of course, that holding Navasana for the full five inhales and the full five exhales makes the press-ups in between feel much easier and I ended up feeling far more ready for Buja and Kurmasana. I guess Navasana is a palate cleanser. Never thought of it as the sorbet of Ashtanga practice. But it seems that it is.

I practiced at home yesterday in the late afternoon due to spending most of the day on a class field trip to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. We were supposed to have gone to Katz's Deli beforehand, but the school bus that was taking us there did not arrive until forty minutes late. As such, we skipped it. Instead, I volunteered to pick up knishes and knockwurst this morning after my practice, which I did, and BOY do I wish I had a camera with me. Katz's is the ORIGINAL, and perhaps the ONLY delicatessen in NYC that is truly a "delicatessen" of the old school ilk. I don't think that ANYTHING in there has been changed in the last 100 years, not the decor, not the menus, not the signs on the wall ("Send a Salami to Your Kid in The Army"), although the prices have changed, and it's no longer Jews at the counter, but rather other relatively new immigrants from countries I couldn't readily identify.

I enjoyed a post-practice turkey on rye with coleslaw with half-sour pickles on the side, washed down with a half liter of Dr. Brown's Diet Black Raspberry. I finished about an eighth of the sandwich before I felt full. I put it back together (I tend to pick sandwiches apart, picking out the choicest bits and leaving the rest), packed it up and took it home with me.

I am pretty sure that the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld, as well as from real life, took his cue from the counter at Katz's. The moment you walk in, you're handed a ticket stub and directed to hand it to whomever gives you food and then return it to the cashier at the front of the room when you're done. Then you make your way to the block-long counter, which is actually a combination of several smaller counters, only you wouldn't know that if you hadn't been there before. Sandwiches are at one part of the counter. Take-away-style food such as knishes, hotdogs, sausages and the like are at another part of the counter. I am not sure where the hamburgers and eggs part of the counter was, but it was there somewhere, as was a counter devoted to large orders and beverages. It was mind bogglingly confusing, and the counters are peppered with signs that are rather assertive in their tone, but are intended to help you figure out where to go and what to do ("Go to the shortest line," one directs). Luckily, the lunch crowd had not yet arrived, and so the counter guys were able to help me out and point me in the right direction(s). The lack of surliness is where it diverges from the Soup Nazi, I suppose. That and the fabulousness of the deli fare. I'm not a big fan of the Soup Nazi's soups. Rather pedestrian, in my opinion, which of course, everything that you'll read here is, in some way, shape or form.

As Miranda Priestly would say, That's all.

YC