The ramblings of a woman obsessed

Now that I've said that I have little to say about my practice, I suddenly am irresistably compelled to say something about my practice, on a topic that has heretofore bored me to tears. Really two topics that have bored me to tears in the past. Those topics would be Bujapidasana and Navasana.

Neither posture has been particularly interesting to me in the past two years, and Navasana has never been interesting to me, as I have always been able to hold it for like, forever, without any effort at all. For those of you who would envy me that, well, just think about my struggles in Supta K, which are mighty. Not mightier than what some others have gone through, but mighty nevertheless.

Anyway, I have recently been called out by my teacher for slacking in Navasana, as I mentioned in a post earlier this week. And knowing my teacher as my teacher, I am pretty sure that he wouldn't have called me out on it the first time he saw it either. He would let it go a few times, maybe even more than a few times, essentially cutting me slack, until he saw that the more rope he gave me, the more I would continue to hang myself. So, let's just say it's been months, or possibly even the better part of a year that I have been phoning in my Navasana, seeing it as nothing more than an annoying time-suck before I get to the shoulders-behind-the-knees poses that come next (Bujapidasana, Kuramasana and Supta Kurmasana). Yes, hello, I'm leaving a message for Navasana, call me back whenever.

Having been made conscious of my slacking, I have since turned to working Navasana with the same gusto with which I work just about everything else in my practice. And whaddayaknow? Suddenly, my Bujapidasana has gone from "jump, scootch, cross, THUD goes the top of the head to the floor, grunt my way back up to a pathetically low-flying Tittibasana and haul the legs back into Bakasana whereupon I jump back and land on my belly" to "jump, cross, FLOAT my FRIGGING CHIN TO THE FLOOR, all the while thinking how the hell am I even doing this?, breathe, float back up, float out, land in chatturanga". If that makes sense.

I have to say, I have always thought that the chin-to-the-floor version of Bujapidasana is incredibly and almost mysteriously graceful. Yet I have never aspired to it. I only have begun doing it because, well, because it has begun to seem like the logical place to land.

I would assume that the change in my Bujapidasana is the result of my Bandha work in Navasana. But then it occurs to me that I have been doing some other Bandha-working work in my vinyasas - lotusing up legs after half lotus asanas and lifting up to jump back, half-lotusing up my legs after Tirianga Mukha Pada and sometimes after the first two Janu Sirsasanas. I wonder if Sir is going to stop me from doing this soon. I hope not because I am really enjoying the feeling of floating up, and I feel like I am building a lot of core strength without overworking my shoulders, which would be counterproductive to binding.

Now, if I can just crack the code to holding the bind in Supta Kurmasana....although I do suspect that I will never crack the code as a result of trying to do so. It is only when I stop looking for the answers that I ever seem to find them in this practice.

YC