What are you looking at?

When we first learn ashtanga, one of the things we are told is that this practice can be boiled down to these things: breath, bandhas and drishti.

The breathing can be difficult for some people to master at first. To find the strength of ujjayi breathing without forcing it; to always move with the breath. I was taught well as a beginner, so this was one of the foundations of my practice. Still, there are days when my breath is ragged, or it catches in my throat, or I feel myself having to "stop" and take a deep breath into my belly, but generally speaking I think I can say: breath? Tick.

Bandhas are a trickier one. I was told in my first weeks of practice that it takes seven years to learn to use them. Hurrah! I thought, that's me off the hook, I don't have to try! But of course that's not the case, we are supposed to diligently try try and try until one day this will start to make sense. It hasn't come as a lightbulb moment for me, or rather I should say not one lightbulb moment, but a sequence of them, but over maybe the past few months, two years into my ashtanga journey, I have started to find that activation , and to feel the effect it has on various places in my practice. The funny thing is that it seems to appear of it's own volition as I stand in tadasana preparing to take my hands into prayer and begin the chant. And sometimes it just doesn't appear, and that's OK too, but on the days when it floats in during tadasana, I know I can rely on it to be present in a patchy way at least throughout my practice. Anything where the pelvis is open it feels incredibly hard to engage, I suppose this is where it will be easier once I can learn to keep it engaged throughout, rather than having to remember once I am in the asana, and trying to find it again. But it's coming.

Drishti is an interesting one, because at first I thought it was simple - just look where you're told to look. In most asanas (with a few exceptions) remembering the drishti was a bigger challenge at first than actually doing it. But maintaining drishti actually within each asana is one thing (look at your hand, tip of the nose, over your shoulder - how hard can it be?), but what about through the vinyasas? And in surya namaskar A and B? When shalamate SY taught our led class shortly before Cary came back from maternity leave (and I should point out, it was the first time she'd ever done such a thing and she did a GREAT job!), before we began she spoke briefly about drishti. She talked about using nasagrai drishti in upward dog, and focussing on the moments of awareness where we are fully present in the moment, and asking us to notice those moments so that in time they could be expanded throughout the practice (I'm paraphrasing and probably getting that completely wrong). But her reminder helped me, in that it made me aware that I was already very diligent in keeping my focus on the tip of my nose as I came into upward dog. Gold star for Mel! But I said to her afterwards that for me, the point where it all goes hazy is going into downward dog. For me, my practice begins like this:

Ekam: Raise the arms overhead, look to the thumbs.

Dve: Fold forward on the exhale into standing forward bend.

Trini: raise the head, looking at the tip of the nose

Catvari: jump back into chaturanga, looking - slightly ahead? Never sure if that's correct

Panaca: up into upward dog, drishti fixed very firmly on the tip of the nose

Sat: ahhhh....this is where it all falls apart. For some reason, rolling over the toes and back into downward dog, my drishti goes a bit swimmy, I lose the focus, and as I go back into downdog with it's uncertain gaze-point I frequently take the opportunity (completely unconsciously, most of the time) to see who just came in the room, to glance at the clock, to see who the assistant is today.

In other words, a total drishti violation! Somebody call the ashtanga police!

Swimmy drishti...not that you can see it in the clip.

A few suryas from my trip to Yoga Thailand last October (that's me in the purple) with Clayton Horton. Vanity requires that I say I think my practice has changed a lot since then ;)

So one day this week, it occurred to me to try and hold nasagrai drishti from upward dog, right through the transition into downdog and see if I could manage it. I'll admit, the first few times I tried it, I felt literally sea-sick and thought "oh well, at least I tried." But then I carried on, and held the drishti through every surya, through every vinyasa, and found that the swimmy feeling was gone, as was the queasy feeling from my first few attempts. So the next day I did it again, and I managed to maintain my drishti through surya namaskar A and B (actually, B is a little trickier what with all of that lungey business, but I did my best), as well as through every vinyasa, and the results of this minor alteration to my practice have been quite incredible.

For starters, I realised just how much I glance around during my practice. Those who practice with me can vouch that I am not one of those people who constantly stops and looks round the room (right Susan?) but it's true I am generally aware of who's there. who got new poses, who fell on their head, who broke the rules...and this level of assessment and judgement of the room affects my practice, and it something I am working on getting over (or I WANT to work on it, but can't seem to figure out how); after all, yoga helps us to become more self-aware, meaning that we don't necessarily stop doing things that are wrong - it just means we notice them more! Keeping that firm focus through the sun salutations leads to a practice which is 100% more focussed than in the past - if not more so. The impact is nothing short of phenomenal. 

I've also been surprised to realise that I haven't been keeping the vinyasa to one breath per movement until now. Somehow my transition back into downdog stretches out over a number of breaths, even in a vinyasa where I should inhale to up dog, exhale downward dog, inhale jump forward, this has been s-t-r-u-n-g out as I fiddle and faff with my feet, or kick my rumpled up towel flat, or - I don't even know how or why, but it's just something I noticed as I learned to maintain the drishti. And having becoming aware of it, I am now doing my best to maintain the rhythm of breath with movement.

An added fringe benefit which I'll admit surprises me is that it seems to be helping my jumping forwards. I am working on this as Kino teaches it, to jump as far through the hands as you can with legs crossed, then instead of giving up, sitting down or planting the feet, to keep your bum lifted off the mat whilst wriggling until the feet go right through to straight legs. Having accidentally engaged my bandhas before jumping forward the other week I felt like I'd found the magic key to get the feet further through the hands (i know, I know; I've read it/been told it a thousand times, but I had to experience it for myself to understand it) but when you add the drishti? Somehow it helps even more! I don't fully understand why, but there is no doubt in my mind that it does, and my feet are now landing further through my hands than ever before, and I'm actually getting one foot right through on the initial jump a few times each day. 

So every day it becomes ever more clear to me how these three things work together: breath, bandhas and drishti. 

The challenge comes for me when I get to surya B which I have some issues with that my teacher keeps picking up on (and hence my mind starts to wander too when I get here) but I could happily do surya A all day and all night with perfect drishti and disappear into some some of sense-withdrawal wormhole. And then of course after an ease-to-maintain-focus padangustasana comes trikonasana and all that follows which seem to allow for a bit of looking where you are going, realigning the hips and feet, checking who your mat neighbour is and general loss of focus, so I suppose this is where my work will be next: how to maintain drishti and focus during the transitions between asana until eventually, maybe, I can maintain focus throughout my practice and not be so concerned about what is going on around me. And there was me thinking I had to actively work on not being so judgemental and scattered in my attention, when in actual fact all I had to do was come back to those three things:  breath, bandhas and drishti. 

 

Garbha information overload

Since I started (trying) to do garbha pindasana and having all sorts of trouble with the rocking, I've heard lots of different advice. I can get my arms right through (thank you Mr water-spray), I can rock back and forth, but as soon as I attempt a circumnavigation of my mat: beaching. Humiliation. Bleurgh.

"Rock back with the exhale, forward with the inhale."

"Pump the thighs as if you were on a swing."

"Make sure you rock alternate sides of your spine to avoid bruising the bony bit of your back"

"keep the bandhas engaged and the neck sticking out like a turtle" (I am paraphrasing...)

"Rock back onto the left side and lead up with the right side"

And much more besides...but still the fact remains that I CAN'T. BLOODY. DO. IT. Every day as I approach it I start making deals with myself as to whether I'll try it "properly" (in a circle) or if I'll just rock on the spot. Most days I find a reason for the latter (I'm too close to my neighbour/the wall, I'm beside the teacher's station & it's putting me off/I don't have time/I don't have the energy) so I am no closer to being able to do it. 

One day last week I just decided that there is only one way I am going to learn this. I have to actually  try. So that day I tried and tried, and eventually with lots of stopping & getting stuck, I got around. So of course the next day - what happened? I was in a hurry so I didn't try. And the next day. And so it goes on...

But today, again with my teacher sitting right beside me, I did actually try. I was encouraged by yesterday's effort where (on the spot, granted) I had managed to maintain contact between my hands and my forehead the whole time, which was an absolute first. And the first rock was good, hands stayed on the forehead and I actually moved round to the right. Pausing before the second rock I started to believe I could do this. I suddenly remembered about bandhas...might as well give that a try I thought... ;) So in my slow way I made a few rocks, a few revolutions, was feeling rather pleased with myself, and then I got stuck. 

"Do you want help?" C asked from her perch, but it turned out the help on offer (at first) was verbal.

"It's all in the tuck. As soon as you lose that tuck you've lost it - that's why I teach it with the hands on the forehead," she said. AHA! The most helpful piece of advice I think of hears on this one - oooor, maybe just what I needed to hear today. And yes, she did have to help me round on the last few (and to fling me into a lame kukkutasana), but this really gives me something to work on for tomorrow. Hurrah for daily practice - the last 2 days I have had the sensation on finishing that I just want to do it all over again...well, in 16 hours time I can have my wish!

p.s. yeah yeah, I know, I'll write about Thailand. One day.

Marichyasana D...do you or don't you?

A(nother) speed post while I continue to process thoughts & reflections from my time in Thailand...(it is coming, really it is - the problem is there's just too much to say, and not all of it suitable for a public airing!!).

After practice today I asked C about Mari D. As I can now bind at the wrist (well, most days) I asked if I should be slackening off the wrist bind to try and get the bent leg hip to the ground - if I try to take the hip down with the deep bind I lose my balance, so what is the priority? It's only recently (like in the past week or so) that I noticed it feels slightly possible that the hip could come down to the ground so I have been wondering about this. C's answer was interesting; she said that she only teaches hip down when you have finished primary. So as she said, next year when you've finished primary, and been finished with it for a while - then yes, that's how I'd teach it, to slacken off the bind to allow the hip to come down (and then eventually of course we'd hope to get the wrist bind back again). She also said that it's probably because I have been doing my new postures (upavistha konasana, supta konasana) that I can feel the possibility of this happening, as there is some of the same action (I can't remember exactly what she said about this, and it doesn't make much sense to me at the moment...). I also asked her about getting the lotus leg hip to the ground in Mari B, saying that if my knee is up should I not be taking my head right down to the ground? Of course the answer is no, so she's going to take a look at it tomorrow (whoops, I hate asking a question that means I'll get pummelled for something on my next practice, but at least I will know then.)

In other news, a visit to my cranial osteopath on Friday (who also happens to practice & teach yoga) led to a demonstration of a new approach to baddha konasana which I got to try out in practice today. I have been really battling with this one, and every day as I come out of it,adjusted or not, I feel slightly like I'm walking away from the wreckage of a car accident (drama queen, moi?). There have been tears, ragged breath, panic, pain, injury...you name it, baddha k has it all for me. So he had me go into it (just the legs) and asked me where the tension is. Right in the hips/pelvic region was the answer, so he told me to roll the flesh away from the sitbones (oh yes, that favourite trick of all non-ashtanga yoga teachers...) and to lift up from the tailbone, and the pubic bone will lift with it. Then rather than trying to push the knees DOWN as I have been doing, he said to take them OUT in the direction they are pointing, and then engage uddiyana bandha to create the space before even thinking of going forward....and going forward lead with the chest, being aware of the space that's been created. Probably none of this is even approaching revolutionary, but as he reinforced each point to me as he added one more instruction at a time, and I sat in the posture all the while we were talking, he pointed out that my hips had opened even in that short time. And, more to the point, it felt SO different, and altogether more comfortable than my past experiences. Of course there's no room in a Mysore context for all of this fiddling about, but today I tried just to focus on some of these points (happily I wasn't adjusted) and again it felt so so different; it probably helped that I spent a long period sitting in baddha k last night but could it be that I am over my major traumas with this asana? As the osteo pointed out, hate is a very strong word to bring to your practice, so maybe I can kiss it good bye for now. Here's hoping anyway.

Finding my mojo

Although it’s a little late to be up and writing, if I don’t do this now I never will! So this morning I had my first mysore practice, though not with my retreat teacher (the course only starts tomorrow with the first practice on Sunday). I slept really well (surprisingly!) clocking up almost 8 hours before I got up to have a leisurely cup of green tea and a shower before heading down for the very civilised 8am start time. One of the people I was talking to at dinner last night was already there, so I went into the shala and was laying out my mat when she started chatting to me – I wouldn’t ordinarily chat in a shala busy or not, as I feel like there is something about the room that needs to be honoured as a sacred space – but she has been here longer than me, maybe the rules are different, so I answered but without too much chat, and then laid down my mat and did some gentle stretches waiting for the teacher to arrive.

They have various teachers here when there is no retreat on, and today it was a young American teacher (who introduced herself but I didn’t quite catch her name...) who I later heard say she is a student of Richard Freeman’s. She came and spoke to me, asked if I was new to mysore, I said that I have a daily practice so she suggested that I started and we would “open up together soon”. So with three other people arranged in each corner of the room, I started my sun salutations. Apart from feeling a little creaky on the first couple, I was surprised that it just felt normal to begin my practice here, with large windows to my left and behind me revealing lush greenery and plants and the odd person walking by. When I was on my surya namaskar B the teacher brought us to the front of our mats to chant, and like in yesterday’s restorative class nobody else in the room made a sound much above a whisper, but the chant was call and response and in a very tuneful and lilting incarnation (not what I’m used to, but quite lovely). So I continued with my practice, noticing (but not attaching to) the fact that the person in front of me was new to the practice (and had a sweet conversation with the teacher “but what’s full primary?” “Don’t worry about that for now, you have what you have...” “Yes but how many more poses? What’s the whole thing?!” “Let’s just work on the marichyasanas and that’s plenty for now...”), the person to her right was obviously not new to yoga, but not familiar with mysore style, and the person to my right went through a standard full primary (no dropbacks). And the teacher picked up on many of the little things Cary picks up on regularly – my shoddy alignment in trikonasana, taking the foot slightly further out in Mari A, taking the body further away from the bent leg in surya B, a rescue mission when I beached myself in garbha (actually C doesn’t help with that, but I could do with it!) – and also some of the things I always think Cary might tell me off for but doesn’t (finding an inward rotation of the thighs and grounding the feet in pursvottanasana, not rolling the feet out in upward dog) but my overall realisation was this:

My practice was exactly like my normal practice. I have flown halfway across the world and done the same practice that I would have done half an hour from my house.

This is not a negative realisation – far from it! But what I came to understand through picking my practice up and moving it all the way here, is that what really counts in ashtanga is the daily practice. I’m not going to expect any miracles just because I am on a retreat, because that would be missing the point. Yes, perhaps once my course begins I will learn things which will cast new light on the things I do on a daily basis, but if not, it’s not the end of the world. The whole purpose of being here is the rounded experience, being away from home, having a break – and if I’m honest, this realisation (which I don’t think I have explained very well) was worth coming all this way for in itself. Because let’s face it, I am about to undertake a new job which means I will be highly unlikely to get to the shala on a daily basis anymore, and realising that I can pick it up and take it somewhere else (i.e. it’s not dependent on my regular shala, or my teacher, or the energy of the other practitioners) is HUGE. Home practice may be another matter, but this will do for starters :)

My new friend

Other good things about today – I met two people who are here for my retreat, and they are lovely (most of the people I’d already met are about to go home). I remember from my second trip to Goa the urge to make comparisons to the first time were inevitable. Here, the comparison to Purple Valley is never far from my mind – though I know this will fade. Also I remember the little struggle I had for two or three days in Goa in January of not being sure about the people I was with, if I fitted in or felt comfortable, and of course by the end of the course that was all long forgotten. So I know that it takes a little time, and whilst this morning and afternoon I spent a lot of time alone, this evening was far more sociable. Plus in my alone time I rested in my room for a while, I lay by the pool, met a family of kittens, had an iced mocha from the juice (!) bar and I swam in the sea! That’s quite a big deal for me as I am always a bit uncertain of water without an edge...but it’s flat calm here and not deep at all, so I felt brave enough and it was fun! Now I did it today I will definitely be in there a lot.

I'm going in...

Oh and this afternoon’s restorative class? Turned out to be Qi-Gong – in the open-fronted beach shala while the waves crashed and the rain arrived in a sudden downpour. I had a few reservations but kept an open mind, and so I was hugging the full moon, scooping up clouds, climbing the cliffs from the ocean of infinite wisdom to the thousand petalled lotus in the third eye with the very lovely & sincere teacher who made some slightly peculiar pleasurable moans as she exhaled. Open mind please people!! It was actually rather lovely, especially the visualisation she talked us through at the beginning, and I felt super spacey afterwards.

But tonight we saw Clayton arrive (haha, I got my new fellow-retreaters to turn round as I pointed him out and he happened to look up – busted! As they said, it’s like when you see a celebrity...!) so tomorrow we begin. And it looks like I may have found my mojo just in the nick of time. 

Gratuitous generic beach-shot. Lovely though isn't it?

Falling into place

Over the past couple of weeks I feel like some of the pieces of the puzzle have been falling into place. I’m talking specifically about asana practice here, and the fact that if my practice were a puzzle, I think I might have just found some of the edges. Or, you know, the few bits you find that make the expanse of blue and green suddenly make sense as being a part of a bigger picture...maybe my weak analogy is beginning to fail me now!

Exhibit A (because it’s the most significant): jumping back. A few weeks ago I was out on a Friday night with Susan talking about the led class that morning where we had practiced side by side. I was talking about how my jumpbacks seem to be the same as my friend who was practising to my right, using this as an explanation that it must be the way we learn (i.e. I’m not flaking out and just not trying, I’m just at a different stage of learning how to do it). Having been really lazy with jumping back for months and months I had finally got back into the habit thanks to some friendly prodding from susan (conducted via email, not during practice I should add!). So I was feeling chuffed that I had reinstated my (attempts at) jumpbacks and brought this up with S. But the conversation went like this:

Me: “So my jumpbacks today...”

S: “You don’t jump, you step.”

Me: “I don’t, I jump”

S: “No, you step!”

Me: “No, I jump!” (making the point as I was proud of myself because I didn’t even skip any that day)

S: “Do you jump off two feet and land on two feet?”

Me: totally confused. Sitting in a barstool and feeling indignant. “Err – I don’t know, I think I sort of spring off the side of one foot – BUT I LAND ON TWO!” I began to realise that she had a point.

So as of that Sunday I started to try and do as Susan said – to jump off both feet and land on both. God it was hard work!! Suddenly I started to understand why whole blogs have been devoted to the jumpback, and there was me up until now blithely unaware that I wasn’t even doing it properly! Actually that’s not true, I knew that I wasn’t, I just didn’t really care. I had chosen to take on board the advice of teachers who suggested that it didn’t really matter and that it was just circus tricks to do all this floating business. No doubt I listened to that advice because it suited me...

So that was day one (Sunday) and on the Monday I continued to attempt jumping off both and landing on both feet. Panting and sweating my way through practice I admit I was cursing Susan a bit...surely this was too much to attempt before work? But I stuck with it through the week (and I think it was generally speaking a pretty bad week as far as practice went) and by the second week of attempting to jumpback, I started to notice something: STRENGTH. My practice felt extra strong and bendy. I noticed the shape of my arms changing too (pathetically I told my colleague “I just noticed my arms in the bathroom mirror and I’ve got a touch of the Madonna arms!” realising as I said it how ridiculous it was. “Careful,” she humoured me “You don’t want to go too far, look what happened to her!”...some chance!). I also experimented with trying to find some bandha strength (this is still a huge challenge to me – I’m really not sure that I can locate the bandhas except at the easiest of points in the practice) and discovered what a light landing it was possible to have if I could manage to find that point and engage the locks.

After a good few days of practices where I noticed this newfound strength I said to Susan “I don’t suppose this is connected to starting to jump-back is it?”

“OF COURSE!!!” comes the reply (or sweeter, less” I told you so” words to that effect!). It didn’t make sense, I thought that in started to learn I would feel weaker from the extra effort, and the reason I wasn’t trying to learn was that I didn’t have enough strength. But Susan’s point, and one she says she makes frequently in her classes is that you only gain the strength by trying to learn – it’s totally chicken and egg! So although for now it’s still a lot of hard work, and I am still moving my hands forward before trying to jump off both feet (the lifting up and through will be a LONG way off yet), finally I get why it’s important  – and at least I’m trying now. And that seems to be the main thing.

Exhibit B: Surya B. Earlier posts on this blog will attest to the fact I’ve never been a huge fan of surya B – though in recent months, in fact since I started to have more of a regular practice and got it up from 3 Bs to 5 (ALWAYS!) I don’t really mind it so much. But one day last week Cary came and shook everything up and made it HARD. I was always taught (or so I thought) to step the back foot in as you turn it – I seem to recall being told to move your foot to where your toes were in downward dog (though I may have borrowed that instruction from a flow class where it was perfectly valid!). But Cary came and worked really hard on me to turn the back foot in keeping it right at the back of the mat, and moreover to lift up out of the hip without unbending the knee – in other words, I’ve been doing it wrong all this time. Since she did this with me Surya B has become very difficult, a great challenge (on the first couple today my bent leg couldn’t seem to get far enough forward with the back foot planted at the back of the mat), it’s hard to keep the outer edge of the back foot grounded, it’s hard to lift up out of the hip as she demonstrated, it’s all quite a lot of new instructions to remember so early on the practice, but I suppose the best part is that it’s taken Surya B off auto-pilot (and it will never be the same again). The same principle applies of course to the dreaded Vira 1 which continues to be a favourite (yuck).

Exhibit C: Upward dog. Call me slow but...I just realised on Friday that I lazily allow my thighs to make contact with the ground in updog, and that actually keeping the full length of the leg lifted is probably correct. Somebody please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I just discovered and fixed my very lazy habit. Something else which will never feel quite the same again...(it‘s much harder work now!).

Exhibit D: Something’s happened to my hips. I no longer have to baby my right hip/knee before attempting half-lotus (I used to have to cradle and rock it for 5 breaths first) and I can feel a huge difference in various postures especially upavistha konasana A in Friday’s led (as this is further than I usually practice, apart from in the Led class where I stay for the whole series). The weird knee thing seems to have gone away as inexplicably as it arrived. I can also feel a huge difference in my hips in kurmasana.

Exhibit E: (this is getting lame now): Supta Kurmasana. I hate to write this down in case I curse it, but as of last week this posture has rocked. As in, my few weeks worth of veeeery tentative finger bind and feet which will touch but that I could only cross with assistance seems to have changed to a good secure hand bind and an effortful solo crossing of the feet. Not just once, but two days in a row – including in Led with minimal time spent in kurmasana first! And then it worked again today after a weekend off – so maybe, just maybe, it’s here to stay. The key here seems to have been seeing the Kino video that has been posted on various blogs – it was actually of bhuja, but it was seeing Kino get the action of moving the shoulders under the knees that I was then able to start doing before going into both bhuja and kurmasana. It’s a bit of extra faffing yes, but for the extra depth in kurmasana I think it’s worth it J

So where are we up to? New jumping back attempts, extra superwoman Madonna-armed strength, new approaches to surya B and Vira 1, a non-lazy upward dog, newly more open hips, a comfortably bound supta kurmasana...what’s left? Well garbha continues to be a challenge, the bruises come and go (currently they are not too bad at all), my arms are getting more comfortably through and under my chin (no more weird one-arm-further-forward action where I had to hook my thumbs together to keep the hands in place!) but the rocking in a circle still seems like a impossibility. I have at least been trying (a bit) but after many beachings I am avoiding it for the time being as it makes me panic and feel stupid (all at once).

Ooh I know what else – headstand! So it’s been a good few months now since my headstand magically appeared in a Kino Led class, and I have been practicing it daily, but in the past week it suddenly got STRONG. I now feel secure in it, to the extent I popped up into it a few times while visiting my family this weekend (to show my 3 yr old niece who always wants to do yoga with auntie Mel) and had a conversation with my mum when she then came into the room. Something moved, I have always known that the weight is supposed to be in your arms, but suddenly in the past couple of weeks I felt the strength transfer into my shoulders and arms and I found this whole new level of security in the posture and have been gradually increasing from about 15 breaths, adding on 5 a day until I am now up to about 30-35. Next step – trying again to learn to float into it (currently I tuck up into it) which Cary is bound to get on to me about again at some stage.

I’m not listing all of these things to show off, or because this is “progress” as such, or certainly not on a physical level. It just seems amazing to me that in a time when my life off the mat is actually feeling rather angst-ridden (yes, the prospect of my new job is very exciting but also utterly terrifying – especially as I still know very few details and my anxiety is filling in the gaps!) my practice is consolidating in all of these ways, and simultaneously. I love the science experiment we conduct on our mats everyday! I should also point out that the week before last (when some of these changes kicked in) my practice felt laboured and difficult every day, it’s not like I am having stellar practices every day (though last week that seemed to be the case) but these little pieces of the puzzle seem to keep popping into place, making it all make a bit more sense to me.

Oh and today? Today I got given baddha konasana. I get the feeling this new asana is going to bring joy and pain...but no expectations, I will try to form my own opinions based on my own experience rather than freaking out because I know everybody else does. So it’s onwards and upwards - and sidewards, and backwards, and any-which-way-wards – after all, progress is never linear in this practice is it?

Uncertainty creeps.

“Melanie’s possible weaknesses:

May not respond well to uncertainty.”

So says a psychometric test I took recently – and I couldn’t agree more! My “situation” of uncertainty is ongoing, hence the radio silence on the blog as keeping things from you my dear readers (!) feels a little like absence of satya (plus I have a hard time keeping my trap shut, but confidentiality is required at this stage). Haha – I’m making this out to sound a lot more exciting than it really is!

Anyway I found this comment interesting as it has been well demonstrated in my body and mind (and more particularly my practice) over the past week. I have read numerous dedicated teachers (though Nancy Gilgoff springs first to mind) say that the benefit of having a daily practice is that it’s your opportunity to check in and see where you are at, and if you are feeling unwell, or not quite balanced in some other way, that it will probably show up first in your practice (if you’re not already aware of it, that is). Last week I had the week off work, and in my mind’s eye it was the perfect chance to get some serious rest and relaxation plus (of course) to throw myself into my practice. In the run up to my holiday-at-home I was seriously exhausted and was only just getting through the preceding week at work. I even (shock horror) skipped a day of practice that week, having got up at 5.30, switched the shower on, then turned and seen my reflection and the horrendous black circles under my eyes. Interestingly the mental argument to skip practice was as much a battle of wills as I used to face to go to practice back in the olden days before I was an ashtanga swot ;)

But it turned out that my body had other ideas for my dedicated practice and rest week. Well for starters I turned out to be too busy to rest - having been away for the weekend I then made plans for Monday Tuesday and Wednesday. So for example after  practice on Wednesday I rushed home for a quick shower and breakfast before leaving again an hour later to meet my sister who was in London to visit me for the day (and we had a very very lovely time too, but exhausting!!). By Thursday morning as I slogged through yet another very laboured practice I realised that something had to give – the phrase that kept running through my mind was that I was “running on empty” and once the thought was there, it stuck – round and round it went, from the suryas to closing. I also could no longer avoid the fact that the life-uncertainty that I am in the midst of is impacting on the ability to focus my mind.  I am living in a time of speculation where I can see four distinct and separate ways that my life could go and until I know what’s going to happen, I just need to allow the uncertainty to be there, but not to let it get the better of me. But this is a little easier said than done. After Thursday’s practice I went for coffee & pastries with a shala-friend, then on to meet another yoga friend in town for a few more hours of coffee/tea and catching up (and a second breakfast) and by the time I got home I was wiped, emotionally and physically. So I decided that with a few days remaining of my holiday (how did the week go so fast??) I needed to start getting in some serious rest. Afternoon naps became obligatory from this point onwards. In all honesty if I hadn’t of had dinner plans with another yoga friend I probably would have stayed in bed from about 4pm onwards! In my past life (pre-ashtanga) I would never have been capable of falling asleep during the day unless I was ill or seriously hungover, but I seem to be getting the hang of it quite nicely these days. My favourite thing is to get right into bed but leave the curtains open – in the middle of the afternoon the sun streams in through my bedroom window so I end up napping in the sunshine like a cat.

After my successful napping attempt on Thursday I decided that a few days r&r to heal my body and soul could make all the difference. True, my situation wasn’t going to be resolved yet, but at least I would be less shattered. So after the led class on Friday I took a leisurely solo cafe breakfast with my copy of Guruji (which I am adoring, naturally), then headed home by which time I almost felt ill (I was soooo cold) that I ran a very hot bath, climbed in, and got straight back into my pyjamas afterwards and went to bed. I think it was about midday by this stage. I got up in time to make red lentil & lemon soup which I ate (still in my pjs) before heading off to see my magical cranial osteopath (who does all sorts of other bodywork and I never know what to refer to him as. Let’s just call him Rob.) First questions from Rob: So how are you? (standard answer without remembering who’s asking – “fine!”) How’s your body? (haha!!). I told him about my week off, and how I thought I would be getting my energy back, but practice has been a slog and I am beyond exhausted. He practices and teaches yoga too, and has often spoken to me before about how we make deals with our body – in busy times we stick to crazy schedules, don’t sleep enough, don’t eat well, and we tell ourselves that it’s “just until I get the promotion” or “just until the end of term” – whatever it is, we cut a deal with ourselves that this won’t be forever. And at the end of the busy period we try and get back to normal, or we go on holiday and what happens? We get sick. Rob said that he used to tell his students that sometimes you just have to “Do the ill thing” i.e. give in and STOP - which without realising it is what I had been doing for the preceding day or so. The other thing that my treatment with him became focussed on was my newly tweaky left knee (which randomly started hurting during the day on Thursday) which he declared to be inflamed and probably the result of hyperextension. Funnily enough one of my yoga teachers in my preashtanga days had pointed this out, as had Harmony on my first trip to Goa, but since then it’s never been mentioned. It does seem strange that all of a sudden it should flare up my previously pain-free left knee but I am going to take his word on it. After the treatment it was feeling quite a lot more tender, so needless to say more resting was required, which just about covered Saturday where my only outing was to a kirtan class. Sunday’s yoga practice was OAP yoga (veeeeery slow) though luckily I had the chance to chat with Cary beforehand who checked my knees and agreed that yes, I do have hyperextension and that in her words “This is good! Now you really have a practice...a MENTAL practice!”. I was given strict instructions to put in the microbends not just through my practice, but in my whole life (I reckon standing up on the tube – what do they call it, straphanging? – is where I lock out my knees the worst actually) and so my practice was slow and mindful (aka irritating). Somehow putting that teeny bend in your knees simultaneously feels like cheating, but also makes everything seem more difficult. Bye-bye delicious easy forward bends...hopefully not for long though. The noteworthy point in Sunday’s practice was that FINALLY I managed to hoist myself up into kukuttasana! Since my last post I have been working hard on garbha pindasana and watching my changing emotions towards it (from thinking that I will NEVER get the rocking, to it becoming easier, from tears of frustration to quiet determination, from bruises below the elbow to bruises above the elbow) and the moment that I gained some control in my rocking (still on-the-spot for now) Cary started pressing me to lift up at the end. Up to that point I hadn’t even tried as it just hurt and felt wrong. Cary’s explanation when I gave this reason? “You know how uttitha hasta is just HARD?” – I knew that meant I had to do it. So I have been trying, utterly convinced I would never do it, and though it took tremendous effort and about 8 momentum-gathering-rocks, on Sunday I finally had lift-off!

And you know what? Once I was up there it felt so easy – almost too easy! So when the same thing happened today (after only about 3 attempts – progress!) and I got the same easy feeling and wide grin in kukkutasana I simultaneously realised a couple of things. One – I am STRONG! Maybe not compared to anyone else, but for me – I am! And this pose makes me really feel like I am on top of the world, I love that feeling! Two – so often the journey is the hardest part. Once we have made the climb, so often we can just stand back and enjoy the view. I think it’s easy to forget this and think that things are always going to be difficult and tough if they are hard-fought, but sometimes all this means is that the hard work is already done. I’m not even sure if this directly applies to my own off the mat stuff, but it definitely applies on my mat, so I thought it might be worth sharing. Boring post over and out.

Practice report

Maybe it's time for a practice report; it's been a while. Non ashtangis (are there any reading?!) you might want to look away now unless you want to be bored to death!!

Quite quickly daily practice has become the norm. Aside from missing Sundays the past few weeks (my birthday/moonday and then my niece's 1st birthday - and my other niece's 3rd this weekend, so that'll be 3 in a row) the consecutive 5 weekdays feels tough, but good. That decision making process of whether to go to the shala has gone, and the daily routine is now comfortably established. My alarm is set a little earlier these days (5am) and due to the broken shower at the shala I allow time to wash my hair before practice, have some tea and mill about for a bit before I leave, starting practice around 7am. The little victory this week has been arriving closer to 6.45 and getting onto my mat BEFORE 7! Next thing I know I'll even be on time for work... ;)

I've been concentrating on tidying up my practice too, by which I mean cutting out some of the faffing, and I think I have probably shaved a good 10 minutes off it on a good day, maybe more. Enough time anyway to no longer have any excuse but to do 5 surya As and 5 Bs, my guilty confession is that since having new poses added in April (I think it was) I cut down to 3 Bs as I was feeling knackered and a bit overwhelmed. A wise friend suggested last week that it's very important to do the full quota to warm up the body so this week they are back, and I haven't keeled over and died just yet. My other spot of cheating which I have kicked to the kerb this week is the bent leg navasana...I stopped trying to do it with straight legs months ago as I had a serious case of the leg shakes and felt that I was tipping so far back to prevent it that I might be better off with the legs bent. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I was cheating...and then assistant B suggested on Monday that I just tilt my head back a little and it seemed to make all the difference, the straight legs are back and yes, there is a little additional effort but it also seems easier somehow (maybe alleviating my guilty conscience has done me some good).

So what else is new? Prasaritas are feeling STRONG, I have always enjoyed these (mainly A) but with my quite-wide stance the head is now comfortably down in A, loose strands of my fringe are brushing the mat in B, head is down in C and I can feel that sans assistance the hands are nice and far over (they are back to being down to the ground with help, but it doesn't come often) and in D I can move weight back over my hips and not lean all of my weight on the thumbs as I bind around the toes. This sequence is undeniably getting much much stronger with my more consistent practice. Another huge change is in UHP, mostly in my mental attitude. It's gone from being a pose of dread to once where I feel strong and empowered (thanks to twitter friends @yogicaroline and @Dom1985 changing my mindset on this). I am not bowing down to the leg unless I'm assisted but I've gone from veeeery shaky balance and dropping the leg 2 or 3 times before giving up to a good firm A where I  feel strong in the leg and have a firm grip on my toe. Taking the leg to the side for B is the real challenge, some days I can find the right spot and feel I am still lifting and the leg is strong, other days my hip clunks noisily as I rotate it and puts me off, or I just can't find the balance. Led classes tend to bring a complete absence on this posture and I am starting to crave an adjustment so that I can do a "proper" one, it's been a while.

Utkatasana is now a pose of great effort as opposed to one I rushed, the legs are bent trying to feel the burn (it's Susan's fault for saying it's good prep for pasasana, might as well get started early!!) but the warrior sequence is a bit of a trial still. I'm feeling tired in my hips and as I approach it I often consider bailing out before seated, but manage to keep going although I feel like I rush it, hoping not to get adjusted or called out by C to bend my legs more deeply (it's too hard!).

Forward bends are DEEP and I'm trying hard to concentrate on bandhas (everywhere of course, but particularly in paschimottansana) grounding through the pelvis and working on getting chin to shin. I asked for help again with my dreaded Janu sirsasana B this week as it continues to be painful on the right side, C seemed genuinely surprised when I showed her the mark that has developed on my foot and referred to it as a "weird injury"!! As I showed her the problem I realised that the pain comes when I lean forward to take the foot, she suggested that as my body was talking to me that I listen to what it's saying and stop just short of the point where it's hurting. I said I could feel that if I had more bandhabandha strength than anything else. Triang mukha continues to be a challenge though it seems to have lost much of it's emotional content, but perhaps because I am not really pushing it. On days when my bandha focus is better this one seems better too, but B never misses his chance to adjust me in it on his days assisting, due I suspect to the fact he knows about my meltdown. I did wonder this morning why that didn't "clear it", I always thought that if I finally allowed the tears to come I would have burnt away the samskaras and been free of it, so not sure why this hasn't worked in my favour yet? In any case I am done with analysing it to try and gauge what the emotion is, I'm just aware that there's something there.

I'm working on going straight into the Maris from my jumpthrough, or at least with little hesitation, and have had a few days of wrist-binding in D this week. Adjustments in C feel delicious, it seems to be so easy to turn what feels like 180 degrees and take hold of my inner thigh, in B and D (and all half lotus postures) I am being cautious with my right hip/knee and taking a few breaths of cradling the leg before diving on in. Bhuja is...well, bloody difficult, but my new strategy is to lower down reeeeeeally slowly maintaining control, which means I get about halfway down in 5 breaths. Avoiding a faceplant/bum-landing means no head on the ground for now. Or I try it twice, once this controlled way (trying to avoid the wild swinging back and forth which sometimes happens) and once with the head down, where I inevitably dive down and then get trapped, leading to the crash-landing exit.

Kurmasana and supta kurmasana have benefited most from my new daily schedule. This morning I had a firm grip on the rib cage with the legs in kurmasana and felt like the legs were all-but straight/flat, and I am halfway between comfortably getting my forehead and my chin down. If I try it twice the second one always feels SUPER strong on this rib-squeeze. And on Monday I was given a little gift to keep me motivated when I managed to bind my fingers in supta k all by myself! True the feet were not crossed at the same time but this is just step one (and the self-binding has been absent ever since). In the days that followed I have just missed the bind and have had assistance some days but not others, with C getting me to try and cross the right foot over left and then ram my head down under the locked feet, on some days she lifts my legs up and I hold for a breath or two in dwi pada. I asked her what it takes to get the foot to cross as it feels impossible (like learning to fly or something) and her answer was WILLPOWER! As she said, it's just not logical, the only thing that will get it there is sheer determination. My exit is getting stronger too, though up into titibhasana is improving, but coming into bakasana still has a long way to go - I can bring my right leg around but not to the back of my knee (it's sort of resting at the side I think) then as the left leg comes around the toes just meet the floor and I go into a sort of squat...where I recover briefly while I consider that backbends come next!

The next thing on the list for C's bootcamp this week is my headstand. Given what a battle it was to get up into the inversion I have been happy just to get on with it these past few months, but she has now got me working on floating up into it. She gave me the balasana back massage one day this week and after she finished I became aware she was on the floor beside me. When I eventually roused myself (quite zoned out by the stage) she told me to come back up, walk my feet in ("no more! even closer!") tuck one knee into the chest, and then try to float the other leg up. "No jumping!" Another WTF?? moment (like learning to fly), there was no way my toes were coming up without a little hop! A few days of trying this and I found that one leg would lift a few inches and felt magical when it did (it actually FLOATS! Who knew?!) eliciting a noise of surprise (sorry Susan) but the other side stubbornly refuses to lift. And getting into a full inversion in this way is another story - I have a few tries then go back to my usual tucking the knees in then shooting the legs up version and hang out in headstand. A few days into these experiments C comes over in balasana and this time says "halfway down?". Bootcamp I tell you! I told her I can't do it (haha - I never tried, it just looks too hard) so she suggested I can bend my knees down then try to straighten one leg at a time. So I go back up into headstand (struggling to get back up) and as soon as I try to bend the knees it all happens too fast and I think I'm going to go over the top. Slowly is the key apparently. Too tired I vow to try again the next day. Yesterday I went to the wall to experiment with both new tricks and without the fear of going over I walked both legs in and BOTH legs floated up - I can't explain how great it felt, though admitedly I felt too far forward on my head and the legs clunked against the wall and I came back down again. Still, it's a start - and the same with halfway down, I gave it a whirl at the wall, it's just all about getting used to the feeling I suppose and this is just week one.

This practice, there's always so much to work on! Led class tomorrow, love that group energy. More soon on how all this yogaing is changing the off the mat stuff too! 

Yahtzee, Supta Kurmasana and being fickle.

This post is long overdue, there have been so many ideas and thoughts I wanted to write about over the past weeks but I still haven’t figured out that direct brain-to-blog uploading technique yet ;)

So what’s been happening? Practice seems to have ramped up a gear or two and become more consistent the past few weeks, and there has been some interesting mental stuff coming along with it. I wrote last month about how Cary was going to Mysore so for the past 5 weeks we have had Mel covering at the shala. More on that to come, but as today was Mel’s last day with Cary coming back tomorrow, last week was her final full week and I decided I didn’t want to miss any of it. I had quite a busy week socially though so I wasn’t sure if I could do it, but somehow I managed to make it my first-ever-in-normal-life 6 day week (outside of a retreat!). I didn’t mention that I was aiming for it to Kevin or Susan when we were emailing during the week (and as Susan had practiced at home a few days that week she didn’t know that I hadn’t skipped my usual Tuesday!), in my mind it’s like that game Yahtzee we so loved when we were children. Did you ever play it? It’s a dice game introduced to my family by our Dutch friends where you roll the 5 dice and try to get sequences on a score card (they’re called things like Three of a Kind & High Straight). The move with the highest score is “Yahtzee!!”where all 5 dice match (I know the plural is die but it sounds weird) and the way we used to play it you had up to three rolls to get it – but let’s say you had three 6s and rolled again hoping to get 2 more, but got a 1 and a 4 instead. You would have to confess that you were aiming for a Yahtzee and it would get crossed through on your score sheet – so because you had already attempted it, even if (by some fluke) you got it later you couldn’t get the points. 

I felt a bit like this about aiming for a 6 day week – once I got to Thursday and was knackered (and going to a gig that night) I just kept thinking don’t say you’re going to Led class tomorrow, you might not make it...but I so wanted to, it being Mel’s last one and somehow I did. I can’t quite believe that I only really started taking Led classes the week Cary left – and only then because I didn’t want to miss her last day. Then I felt bad thinking that Mel (who’d practiced with us on Cary’s last day) would notice that her led class wasn’t rammed to the rafters like Cary’s, so I went to her first one. And then I started to find that I liked the vibe of starting and finishing with everyone else, and having time to chat after practice, which almost made it worth the extra early start.

So anyway the 6 day week happened last week, and I couldn’t quite believe the difference it made to practice. I’m not saying everything was brilliant but I could definitely feel the difference. Also this was while I had an issue with my ears – I was deaf for almost the whole week – which motivated me to practice more as the only time it didn’t feel horrible was during my practice, but it did also make certain postures harder. But by Friday I was exhausted – and I mean “I think I might throw up on the way home from work” exhausted. I booked an impromptu massage which helped, but so did the 12 hours sleep I had on Friday night. And now again I’ve done the past 4 days, and with Cary back from tomorrow for one Mysore practice and 1 led, maybe it’s going to happen again – although I am really resistant to it. 

Susan pulled me up on it today, pointing out that I was like a born-again Christian last week (Oh six days makes such a great difference!) and this week I’m full of “Well I don’t really WANT to do six days..”. What can I say, I’m fickle! I am noticing this resistance to the six day thing, there is a practical basis to it, lugging my big yoga bag around all day every day, having to get to bed a bit earlier (or face total exhaustion), having to prepare lunch the night before and have breakfast at work every day (no porridge!) – it all takes preparation. My flat is full of damp yoga clothes all the time, I need more sleep, I am meant to be catching up with friends in long overdue phonecalls but there just isn’t time to cook, eat, take a salt bath AND chat on the phone in the evenings before I go to bed (or – I spend too long online and then don’t even have time for the bath). There aren’t enough hours in the day! Given that I travel 1 hour each way to work and am at my desk for a minimum of 8 hours a day I just need a few more hours in each day and maybe I’d be getting enough sleep. But then again, this is how I used to feel about practicing in the mornings at all and it really took some time to get my head around it. And then I built it up S-L-O-W-L-Y...starting in January this year I started to practice in the mornings, starting with 1 or 2 days a week plus Sundays. Then I got to the point where it made sense to stop paying as a drop-in, and then, without really realising it, going to practice became the rule not the exception. And I’m sure this won’t be the only time I do a 6 day week so I just need to work through this resistance and do it when I can, but knowing when to listen to my body (i.e. when I really really do need more sleep!).

Before Cary went away I was thinking that I really wanted to see huge changes in my practice in the time that she was away (to use it as a marker if you like). And for the first few weeks it didn’t seem like that was really the case. My shoulder started playing up again so I asked Mel not to adjust me in supta kurmasana and I backed right off the posture, and one week of backing off just became the status quo. I think it was only last week that Mel assisted me to bind my hands for the first time and my shoulder was OK, so from then on she did it each day. But then yesterday she did a bit of a supta k clinic with me, instead of just putting me into it she explained and helped me to understand how to work towards getting the bind myself. I started a few weeks ago to concentrate on getting my chest down flat in kurmasana and not to worry about crossing my feet as I came into supta k (thanks to Helen for her advice on this which has really helped!). Then I checked Gregor Maehle’s primary series book and he suggests having the arms out to sides, level with the shoulders rather than pointing backwards as I had been doing. Again this really seemed to help. So with my arms in this position, and my feet walked in a little with the weight onto my heels, Mel had me turn the palms upwards (“No, the other way...” I was trying to get there the long way round!) to get the rotation of the arms. Then the arms were to stretch right back as if I was trying to touch the back wall (palms down again now) then one at a time bringing the arm high up the back. She then helped me the last few inches to bind my hands, then came around to cross my feet, not lifting them not over the back of my head as Cary had been doing, but instead in the air parallel to the floor while I gripped the bind and breathed. It was probably about 20 breaths later (all in) she said “release it when you’re ready” (probably wondering what I was waiting for!) and I pushed down into the hands, lifting up with my legs somewhere in the direction of being behind my head. No tittibhasana attempt as she gave me a debrief instead, telling me that I’m actually pretty deeply in the pose and offering a few more pointers, and I can’t tell you how energised the vinyasa into my backbends was. Deeply in the pose, really?? Backbends were super strong thanks to the euphoria and I started thinking about trying it again when I got home from work J

Instead I waited until this morning, and at the end of a good-ish practice I was assisted on my first attempt, the same drill as yesterday, with the pushing down on my hands to lift out of it much stronger than yesterday. Mel assured me that my left hand was in just the right spot and that I was only about a centimetre from it meeting my right hand (although she said it moved a bit when the right hand came around) so I decided to give it another try. Why does the second kurmasana attempt automatically feel about a hundred times better than the first? And why do I always forget this when I’m debating whether to do it twice or not? Here’s the rule Mel – always do it twice. ALWAYS. It will be worth it! So a delicious feeling kurmasana, squeezing the thighs into the rib cage as per Mr Maehle’s suggestion, and then I heeded the extra advice as I went into supta kurmasana, remembering how close I was and just where I needed to get my hands on my back – and I could feel my fingers! It’s not the first time I’ve made any contact, I have brushed fingertips once or maybe twice before but this time I could actually feel my fingers, though they weren’t close enough to bind alone. Mel was on hand and just popped my hands together and they happily stayed there, I brought my feet in and crossed them for a less hardcore version than the assisted one. But if I can go from not meeting to touching fingers in just two days, I am feeling really encouraged. Not to mention the actual verbal encouragement and excellent broken-down practical explanation which worked wonders – now I just have to keep practising!

I’ve rambled on for too long already so I will save the stuff about adapting to different teachers for another day. But suffice it to say I was very sad when I said goodbye and left the shala today, and it reminded me of my floods of tears when leaving Purple Valley in January – and the memory just made me even more upset. I think it would be difficult for some people to understand why saying goodbye to a teacher who you have gained so much from (but over a relatively short period) should be so sad (especially as there’s every chance you will see them again). But hopefully you, my fellow ashtangis, will fully understand the strength of the bond you can feel with a teacher through daily (or almost daily!) practice with them. On the other hand, I am so grateful to have had such wonderful teaching while Cary was away, and now tomorrow my teacher will be back – no doubt reinvigorated and inspired by her trip to Mysore. So as a good friend of mine would say...everything is already perfect.

Monkey Mind

Sometimes a vivid and colourful mind is a blessing during yoga practice, sometimes a curse. 

Thoughts float into my mind unbidden and I don’t stop them coming. This has led to some weird and wonderful realisations, profound ideas, pictures of my future and interesting occurrences. Once as I was sitting in my moment of quiet post-practice (which I traditionally use to practice gratitude but can become a bit automatic...) the Lord’s Prayer popped into my brain. Weird, I thought, but I let it continue, recited from the age of 5 at Sunday school in a strange stylised fashion. When I go to a kirtan I tend to find I can think clearly and have had some great realisations there – so I forgive my brain for not being quiet (if you can’t be still, at least say something worth saying). Feelings of resistance pop up during practice, moments where I want to run from the room, but I don’t consider these bad thoughts, just intriguing: where they pop up (and why) comes and goes over time. 

The most frequent unwanted thought during practice always comes near to the end. “There’s nothing left to dread” it says. Intellectually speaking, I don’t like this thought, and wouldn’t say that I even consciously agree with it. I don’t feel like I dread anything very much in practice, certain postures have moments of hesitation beforehand, but no actual dread. There did used to be dread in the run-up to headstand, but not anymore. But still the thought pops in more often than not, usually when I’m most of the way through closing – but not today. Interesting when the thought is there, interesting too when it’s not, but no judgements. It’s hard not to assess these things and just to allow them to come, or not, but that’s what I’m going for.

Savasana has become all about the visualisations. I sometimes used to focus on a point above the third eye, feeling something radiating out from there and covering my body, almost like the readybrek glow. Now it’s a point somewhere right at the centre of my body – since reading about the concept of Buddha mind there’s a strong visual picture of a small gold statue buried deep within me. I peel away the layers to let it’s light shine through, with every exhalation the glow reaches a little closer to the surface until finally it feels like I can barely contain it. It’s like lying in the hot sun, this feeling, and a smile becomes involuntary as I let the light radiate out through my skin, allowing it to reach out beyond my physical body.

There's no place like...Yoga Place

(thanks to Jen for the revised title - much better than the original one!)

The biggest motivating factor in getting me into a regular practice has been finding the right shala and the right teacher. Although I started practicing ashtanga in March 2009 (when I accidentally booked an ashtanga retreat in Goa, mistakenly thinking I knew what it was...!!) it wasn't until after my second retreat this January that I settled into a regular practice. I tried a couple of teachers in London in the months that followed my baptism of fire at Purple Valley and although I loved the second of them (the first one was nowhere near traditional enough for my liking) I couldn't make it stick and at best was practising two evenings a week. I was convinced that a morning practice was impossible for me due to where I live in London, the cost of classes, the fact we have no showers at my office, you name it and I could come up with an excuse about it.

But then in October November (wow, was it really? I just re-read the post to confirm it...22nd November to be precise!) I rocked up at Yoga Place, having been encouraged by reading Susan and Globie's accounts of the teacher there via their blogs. But what with YP closing for Christmas and all of the madness in the run-up to it I didn't get there very often, just Sundays to begin with. But as I just reminded myself in reading what I wrote that first day, I instantly felt like I had found my teacher. Then for the first two weeks of January this year I was in Goa practising with Noah Williams, and despite being in a world of pain (it had been months and months since I had practised two days back-to-back before then, let alone 6 days - twice!) I came back determined to get to the shala more regularly. In conversation with one of my friends there I made my excuses as to why I couldn't get to the shala regularly before work (the commute, the timing of getting to work, etc etc)  and she matched every one of them with her own situation in Washington D.C. (actually she trumped me -as she has to be at her desk for 8.30am and I start an hour later). There came a point during the retreat that I just thought "Come on then Mel. 2010: the primary series. Let's do this thing." I vowed to throw away my dissatisfaction with where I was up to in my practice and just bloody get on with it.

And so far so good...I started off slowly, getting to the shala two weekdays plus Sundays, and it was hard to begin with. Going to bed really early, having my bag packed the night before with my yoga and work clothes all laid out...it was like a military operation. The first few months really were tough. But then came the turning point where I stopped paying drop-in and and paid for a full month. Cary was so fabulously encouraging (she used to practically applaud every day that I showed up at the start) especially the first time I signed up for the month. Two weekdays became three and I settled into a pattern - practice Sunday Monday, rest Tuesday, practice Wednesday Thursday, rest Friday and Saturday. And then only in the past month or so I broke the pattern and started getting to led classes, and sometimes even *shock horror* practicing on Tuesdays! I broke the exception of "never having done three days in a row" and soon I had done four days in a row. Going to the shala became the rule not the exception (and gone were the clothes laid out and pre-planned...and the early nights!). 

But the thing that inspired me to write this today was this feeling of what has grown over the past few months for me - and that is the energy I get from practising with my shala-mates. Whilst my feeling that Cary was my teacher was immediate, the feeling that this was my sangha has taken months to evolve, but I can honestly say that the first few hours of every day are now my favourites. I am blessed to practise with such wonderful, lovely and supportive people who come from a variety of walks of life, some of whom I know well, some I speak to briefly but know nothing about their lives, others I just exchange smiles with. But all of them make the shala. On a bad day you can always find somebody to speak to in the changing room who will give you a suggestion or just somehow make you feel better. On a good day you can share you triumphs. They sympathise when you talk about your tears, tell you what to eat (or not to eat) when you have a cold, share recipes for the best ever curry, talk about where to get the best coffee - what's not to love? When I first visited Yoga Place I said that I felt what I had been missing before was the feeling of friendliness and community; there's no doubt I found it at YP. Having a wonderful teacher is of course massively important, but you will only get so many adjustments on any given day - and it's being surrounded by the familiar faces day-in day-out that really keeps me motivated. And when I take a day off (Tuesdays usually!) I miss it and feel like I've been away forever which means I will always go back the next day.

Now watch somebody go and spray me in the face when they're doing garba pindasana tomorrow morning and I'll take back all this soppy load of sap  ;)

But enough of the sarcastic ending...instead I'll finish with a picture of my touchstone - this is the sign on the front door, and every day as I open the door I make sure I touch my hand to it... and I leave behind my worries and take a deep, deep breath.

Ch-ch-changes...

Funny, if I’d written last week as I planned to then this post would be nothing but excitement and positivity - this blog tends to polarise my life & practice into great or terrible, when of course most of it is made up of a lot of days which are neither perfect nor dreadful. But I suppose the desire to write is greater when there’s something really significant to say, so perhaps you should just assume that in the days and weeks I write nothing what I’m actually saying is “everything is fine”.

Anyway I digress (before I’ve even begun) but maybe I should start with last week’s positive stuff. So last week was great, practice-wise. After being given kurmasana and supta kurmasana on Sunday, I went to the shala Monday, Wednesday and Thursday – a huge improvement from the days of once a week. Despite the fact I felt completely destroyed on Monday after two days in a row (that’s two days of 2 or 3 attempts at bujapidasana and 2 kurmasana/supta k, 1 lone, 1 assisted), resting on Tuesday I felt better than I felt beforehand in terms of my body. I expect (and usually find) the next day to be when you’re most sore, so it was a pleasant surprise to feel like I had a new body instead. Wednesday and Thursday it felt good to practice two days in a row again, I really think it makes a difference, and instead of the usual grand decision the night before, on Thursday I turned up at the shala by default: it just seemed easier than making a decision whether to go or not. I sort of came-to on the tube and wondered how on earth I got there and still felt a bit puzzled when I arrived but it felt like progress that going to practice was the default option. I went out at lunchtime on Thursday and made some notes over coffee about the changes I have started to notice

•  I’m amazed that my body doesn’t feel sore – I know I’ve worked, but nothing feels unmanageable. On Tuesday when I expected to feel really sore I felt amazing, like the day after a terrible hangover when you wake up expecting to feel ill but instead feel back to normal. 
•  I have been feeling totally blissed out after savasana. I normally sit quietly for a moment or two  afterwards, but this period has lengthened as I stay and lap up the waves of whatever this amazing feeling is. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence but it happened three times in a row so hopefully it’s here to stay.
• On Monday night at my choir rehearsal, I was knackered and being told we were going to sing a difficult new song through from the top again I had the familiar feeling of I can’t do it! But my mind went to the brutal effort of buja & kurmasana that morning and I thought if I can do that, I can surely sing a bit more too. 
•  My stomach has been reacting weirdly though I don’t know if it’s connected (think India!). I felt so terrible on Monday I went and got some rehydration salts and took them before my singing class, remembering how much better they made me feel when I was exhausted in Goa. It seemed to work – though I don’t remember accompanying them with a bar of Dairy Milk when I was at Purple Valley! 
• So the week went like this: Monday – wrecked, no energy, body felt broken. Tuesday – rest, felt great. Wednesday & Thursday – cut down to 3 surya B’s to conserve energy. Mad sweating & high energy but Thursday felt like real progress in the exit – I got a real lift up in the arm balance and straightened my legs before lowering gently down. Almost got the bind in supta kurmasana but got so excited (I giggled) that I lost it. Right foot came in over left as C helped me with the bind but I couldn’t quite work the heel up onto my left foot (and yes, I’m sorry but I now make involuntary sound effects while being adjusted) and then she had me hold it for ten breaths – every one of them panted.
•  I feel like buja is making no real progress, some days its better and other days much worse again – definitely no linear progress with this one. But according to Noah this asana is about hip flexors and stamina plus a bit of arm strength, so surely the more I practice the easier this will become?
•  I think getting new poses has changed my attitude to the whole practice because before I felt like I was just going there to get on with it, and getting the odd adjustment, now I feel like I am really working on something and I can start to see a future where my practice will progress. I can understand now why people get hooked on the physical progress and it’s hard not to but I don’t want to become asana-centric. I’m not sure what the answer is but I know that what’s driving me now is that I want to keep practicing more just to make it all come more easily.

But that was last week. So what of this week? I went to practice on Sunday, a tough one as I’d been out late on Saturday night and then the clocks went forward, so I only had 5 hours sleep. There were only 6 of us there and Cary didn’t arrive until 8.45 having been let down by her phone not auto-updating when the time changed. With the shala that quiet I had quite a lot of adjustments, but practice felt like a real slog on that little sleep (after a week of 5-6 hours sleep I really need to catch up on a weekend). For my last three poses the routine was the same: two attempts at buja (actually three, I fell out of the arm balance on the first try and went straight into the second without taking vinyasa), followed by kurmasana & supta solo, and then assisted. After practice my collar bone was feeling really sore on the left side and over the last two days it hasn’t gone away: it feels really badly like it needs to click but won’t. I woke up on Monday at 5.30 and even though my bag was packed for the shala I decided to go back to sleep, and today was a moon day, so I haven’t tried to practice, but it hurts just to have a small bag on my left shoulder. So I went to the osteopath tonight, expecting a lecture about the demon ashtanga and lots of painful adjustments, but actually it was quite good. She explained that my right side is much tighter than my left, so my left side is working harder to compensate. Also my right hip is a bit misaligned which will be affecting my left shoulder/collarbone – it’s true that in supta k on Sunday I felt really tipped over to the left side, and I have definitely been feeling the kurmasana adjustment in my hips all week. She did some huge clicks of my lumbar spine, which made me giggle, and of my neck which made me feel sick, but weirdly nothing on the desperate-to-click collar bone. And although I was determined to go to the shala tomorrow she made me promise that I will practice at home and work on gentle stretching and opening up the hips and shoulders. So this is where the ego kicks in and starts counting how many practices I’ve made it to this week...this inconsistency is driving me mad. I suppose the answer is to just let it go and breathe...