A minor breakthrough

Yeah, I'm going to go with the boring practice report today.

So, I got my butt to the shala despite that I woke up not feeling particularly bendy and despite that I didn't have time to soak in a hot bath like I usually do before taking the kids to school in the morning. Yeah, it's an addiction. But today, I got to practice non-attachment to it. I went in cold. Literally.

And it didn't suck any more than usual.

In fact, after the first creaky Surya Namaskar A, I was in business pretty much. And by the time I finished the Prasarita Padotanasanas, I was was actually enjoying it.

I got through all of Primary up to Navasana without really dawdling or sinking into my mat in the midst of vinyasa-ing, which is kind of a break-through (even though it's not the breakthrough I intended to write about) in that the aftermath of taking seven weeks off to recover from surgery took my stamina down in a big way. I guess it is coming back. Yay.

Note: You can tell I'm tired. And my typing muscles are sore too, which is kind of weird. I hope that doesn't foretell a flu coming on.

As for the asanas, gradually, it seems that Mari A, B and C are becoming as much of a non-event as any of the poses that come before. Mari D is still a bit of a novelty and takes a major marshalling up of my concentration, which is probably not a good thing, since it kind of defeats the purpose of the yoga by breaking the "spell". But what can you do.

After Navasana, the spell is completely broken, as I scootch and scootch and scootch my shoulders back behind my knees, to the point where Bujapidasana is no longer working too well for me. Buja is much easier for me when my legs are halfway between my shoulders and my elbows, as opposed to scrunched up at shoulder level.

Whatever. It's all about Supta K anyway, isn't it? Like Jean Valjean and that other dude in Les Miserables. Like Lewis the Bagle and just about any old squirrel he sees or smells. Like Madonna and world domination. I stalk it. I'm like a major Supta K stalker.

So, here's the payoff, the moment you've all been waiting for: the minor breakthrough. Today, when Sir got my hands to bind in Supta K (I like the way that sounds!! I can't believe I can say it so off the cuff like that!), they stayed together just a teeny bit longer than usual, but that's not the breakthrough. The breakthrough is that when my hands slid away from each other, as they inevitably do at this juncture, they did not do so violently. They just kind of slowly slid, and when Sir put a towel into my hands, I was STILL TOUCHING MY FINGERTIPS TOGETHER!!!! Even with ankles crossed.

Minor breakthrough.

And, oh yeah, I was able to go almost immediately into backbends afterwards. No collapsing into a puddle of sweat and praying that my back would still be in one piece upon standing.

One quandry: Sir told me that I need to relax everything other than my hands, but how can I do that without losing uddiyana bhanda? Without that bhanda, my legs start to spring outward, which pulls my hands apart. But with the bhanda, Sir is working against tightly sprung muscles, making it harder for him to get me into the pose.

Can you say Catch 22?

YC