I've been having a very successful week keeping up with my workout schedule. And it's made me feel like Superwoman! With aching quads and chest to prove it! lol! Yesterday I did Cathe's Gym Style Legs and tacked on Lean Leg's & Abs (just did the legs portion, okay, I'm not that Superwoman) to give me an added cardio hit. And on Monday I did my favorite yoga teacher Kino's Primary dvd. She's such an amazing ashtanga teacher, so generous and prolific in sharing her vast knowledge. And her love of all things ashtanga and her eagerness to share is infectious! But I digress ...
Kino Primary
Because I'm feeling I have to psych myself up to do anything physical these days I decided not to push myself and just get on the mat and JUST DO IT DAMNIT. However much I do, whether just standing or up to supta-k or even not up to supta-k, I was just going to go how I feel. With that I had a nice practice and really only did up to the marichyasana's and then did Fit Chick's version of closing, my goal postures: supta-padangusthasana, front splits, ushtrasana, urdhva dhanurasana (wheel), back to ushtrasana (great sequencing by the way, as doing camel first helped me with wheel and wheel opened my back up more for a deeper camel again. Nice!), then front splits and my final "badass" konosana before savasana. That was perfection for me.
... so practice what you can and don't sweat it, and even fit in your goal postures, and all is coming.
Finally yesterday I did my yoga. My gosh it feels like so long! I did do a wee practice in Miami with my dream come true mirrors in my room. OMG talk about a Bikram room to be jealous of. A full wall from tip to stern and from top to bottom! I was in love! I could analyze my postures to my heart's content. But alas, there was so much to do and so little time to do it in that I just got in one practice analysis. And that was it. Though my mat sat there hopefully the whole time. Sigh! But I digress ...
Strong, Free, and Happy!
Last night I finally fit in my yoga. And truly fit it in I did, as I did it late! Don't ask me how late. Suffice it to say it was well after 12am in between my midnight TV respite. lol! Anyhoo, I did the DAMN WELL just DO IT motto and got it done with my fav Strong, Free and Happy routine off Eoin Finn's Power Yoga for Happiness dvd.
I love this routine as it has alot of ashtanga elements. The standing flow has enough primary postures for me plus a really nice warrior series that will burn and strengthen your legs that's missing in primary. I can always gauge my yoga leg strength with this one and I failed this time. I copped out at the very last twisting posture (utthita parsvakonasana) as I already did long holds in warrior 1, warrior 2, parsvakonasana A, then B without a break! So sue me! Also the standing series has two nice arm balances in it that I love to always get into my yoga practice. Moreover, the seated postures also are ashtanga style with a compacted version of it including the jump backs and throughs. Eoin also includes more arm balances and my fav astavakrasana to koundinyasna jump back and tittibasana. And, YES!, I can still do the full expression of astavakrasana and transition on my right side but still having trouble transitioning into koundinyasana on my left. Practice, practice, practice. However, expressly because of lack of practice my jump throughs at the beginning were more like a drag through. Let's just say I was NOT happy about my backslide. But by the end of practice they were getting more bouyant. Yeah!
I subbed hanumanasana for side plank and supta padangusthasana for the ab work as I already killed my abs sufficiently at the gym the night before. But didn't go all the way to kurmasana and titti. Oh well, another time. But I was happy with what I did. So, overall it was a very satisfying practice.
... so practice, however way you can fit it in, and all is coming.
I climbed the ashtanga mountain and alighted at the peak of Supta K. Or Supta Kurmasana to be exact, which is translated Reclining Tortoise Pose. Your supposed to feel reclined and relaxed, kinda like Kino looks in this picture. Not quite for me just yet as it's still a work in progress! But I love working towards this awesome pose. As it's one of the postures considered the peak in the ashtanga primary series. And just looking at it you can see why. Legs behind the head ~ oh ya! Who wouldv'e thunk it. But sometimes when I'm good and warmed up in my Mysore class ~ many moons ago now, ha! ~ I could get my fingers to clasp on my back and my feet to cross in front of my head all by meself. Thank you very much. Haven't perfected the feet cross OVER my head yet. But it's the journey that counts. The other fun thing about it too is that this is NOT the end of the challenge. Oh, you thought we were peaked, eh! Not yet, my friend. There's still the exit out. Which requires great bhanda, torso, abdominal lift control and balance to unravel oneself, place hands on floor, lift up, up, UP into tittibasana, then lift up, up, UP, some more ~ oh you still thought this was over eh, uh, uh! ~ to bring feet around to bakasana and ~ pièce de résistance ~ jump back to chataranga! Et voila! lol! But I digress ...
Peak to Supta K Class
I took this online ashtanga class with a great ashtanga teacher, Jodi Blumstein, all the way from Santa Monica, California in my very own living room with an amazing online studio called www.yogaglo.com. Ah, the marvels of technology!
I decided on this class as it was a short-n-sweet primary, stopping at my fav pose that has all the challenging binds, flexibility and hand balancing a girl who wanted to excel in gymnastics but failed abominably could ever want, without the dread factor of a full slog of primary, which I wasn't in the mood for. This was the ticket. And I loved it. We had a lovely shortened sun sal A & B then did just the fundamental standing postures up to parshvottanasana (when you go beyond primary you only do the basic standing postures). Then we did just the right amount of seated postures leading up to Supta Kurmasana skipping some of them. She wisely chose the one's that would limber us in the right places for supta though. Which was great. I made sure to do almost all the vinyasa's between sides whereas they just picked up between sides, as I wanted to keep the heat in my body for the peak K posture which is KEY. Though I fudged a wee bit just to keep my wrists safe. As it was, I was warm and sweaty but not as warm and sweaty as in my Mysore class. So what with that, and a lack of practice, shoddy me, I wasn't able to do my famous finger wrap and feet wriggle-n-shimmy-cross-over (see Daylene's first version of Supta K ~ NOT her second, lol! ~ as that's mine when I'm warm and ready in Mysore class, not bad eh). Oh well, it was definitely still satisfying to have gotten there almost full on.
And I had a nice practice with the exit too. Lift, lift, lift and got those feet back into a sad little bakasana before a flop down and shimmy back to chatarunga. Haha! The exit needs ALOT of work still. It's very challenging because you need ALOT of lift in your torso in order to land you knees properly positioned on the forearms to be able to jump back (see again Daylene's knee position high up on her forearms and the lift she did in her torso in order for that to happen). The thing is, it's really easy to position your knees properly in bakasana if you're just doing it straight from the floor, but NOT when you're coming from tittibasana which is that straight leg position you get into before moving your legs back into bakasana. Otherwise your knees are too off the sides of the forearms which makes it impossible to attempt the jump back at all. So you flop off every time. Lift is imperative here and cannot be faked. That's why I love this posture because there's no impostering. You gotta work that lift. So it's great for practice. Lol!
... Last Sunday I went to my first ever Kino MacGregor Ashtanga workshop. She's this wonderful, inspiring, gold dusted, prolific, youngest ever Certified Ashtanga teacher, vlogger, youtube channeler, author, world teacher traveller, co-owner of Miami Life Center, producer of 6 dvd's, and so on, and so on. AND the youngest to be practicing at one of the highest levels of ashtanga, the Fourth Series. Too cool! I even have her 3rd Series DVD. Well, too be honest I have to confess, I think I have all her DVD's, among them her Introductory to Ashtanga (beginner's Primary series), her Primary Series dvd, Intermediate Series dvd (or second series) and one of the pinnacles of asthanga, the Third Series dvd. All of those dvd's are a fount of knowledge, where she gives both a full practice that you follow along with her as she practices with her voiceover and the other part of her dvd she provides a break down of the postures giving modifications where needed. She can talk alot in voiceover BUT there is SO much information to be had in her prompts that it's worth every bit of it to hear it as you follow along. And despite that the pace is so good that I still find myself in a lovely yogic trance while practicing along with her. She's amazing!! Anyways, I digress ...
Kino's Arm Balancing Workshop
I took her arm balancing workshop and boy did she work us over! At first I felt envious that the others beside me had already attended her primary series that morning and her backbending workshop that afternoon before this class. However, by the time we got 15 minutes into the arm balancing workshop I was very glad I hadn't taken any other classes that day as she made us work our arms and core like no other! She's boot camp! She gave us a little taste of the work that she puts into her practice that got her where she is today.
She gave so many gems in this workshop, one of them was in believing in ourselves and not seeing things as barriers, but approachable challenges to possibilities. The other was not to be intimidated by hard work and a little pain to get gain. That that is life itself.
Also, one of the main things she taught in arm balancing and the key to lift is that it's NOT all in the arms BUT the lift happens in the core or the torso and shoulders that make the body taught and stable which will create the lightness and lift necessary to lift out of the arms. That the arms do NOT take all the work and weight. This was an awesome revelation and reinforcement. As I was getting the gist of this before but it all coalesced with her teaching. And she gave us many key exercise tools to gain this type of muscle/motor control. One thing I've started to learn and it was again reiterated in this class is that it's actually not all about strength, but just as important if not more, that muscle/motor control is key! I've distilled it to the term "muscle/motor control" even though she taught it as core control and lift ... Funny enough this was also brought back to me a day later when I watched a youtube vid on scapular contraction when the physiotherapist talked about that same thing being not about strength but motor control. Really cool! ... Anyways she has this really approachable way of teaching and her demo's and explanations are SO good that it's just light bulb moments all the time!
The Funny Thing That Happened on the Way to Pincha Mayurasana
Pincha Mayurasana is my nemesis! I do NOT have the shoulders for pincha! And of course among all the arm balances we practiced we had to practice that one. I dread it since I'm abysmal at it. I can do crow pose, forarm headstand, side crow (on my good days), astavakrasana into koundinyasana b (again on good days), but I can NOT do pincha. I feel that I can't get my forarms in the right position and at the right shoulder forearm angle which should be straight up and down and mine is at almost a 90 degree angle if forearms are parallel. With that I kinda give it a pass on practicing. Ha! Well wouldn't you know it, keener that I am, I positioned myself in the first row RIGHT at Kino's mat. So when she wanted to demo partnering this posture who does she pick? You guessed it ME! My eye's got all bugg-eyed and I stammered and stuttered "Oh no Kino, I can't my sports medicine doc said my shoulders aren't aligned in my sockets so I can't do this posture properly" as I shook my head. Well she was not taking no for an answer not even if the doc said so, as she calmly looked at me quizzically and said "Well, lets just give it a try shall we." And up I went in a perfect straight line, I must say, and held that perfect straight line as she supported me up with her perfect adjustment. It was dreamlike, a true dream sequence if I do say so myself!! And when I got down the room broke out in applause!!! Which they did not do to two other demo's before me and at which I bowed a couple of times to the room. Lololol!! It was a hoot!!! That girl is magic, I say, just magic!!!
... as Kino reiterated, practice, practice, practice, and all is coming.
The dynamic trio! ... I'm so proud of myself as I just did 3 workouts in a row since I've been back at work starting this past Monday, with my awesome go to trainers. I decided to print out a workout schedule and try really hard to focus and stick to it. I find that planning, printing and having my schedule in front of me at my desk is really helping me with my motivation and focus. I was finding that in my heart I want to do it. The heart drive is there BUT my physical, psychological motivation was lagging behind once the evening came around. This way, seeing my planned schedule and also knowing my days off is really helping me so far. But the true test is time over tension and consistency. So we'll see!
My Bakasana Ideal (arms straight, knees higher)
My Bakasana Reality (arms bent, knees lower, but getting there!)
I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet. Just an overview as I need to get to bed!
Travis Monday:
On Monday I did my hearthrob, Travis', Ultimate Yogi Flexibility and snuck in a bakasana (arm balance) and jumpback to chatarunga. Weee! I felt stronger the second time around. Love the front splits in this one which he has you sit in forever! I'm practically groin down on one side. Yes! My hammies feel quite knackered the next day, but you know it's just stretchy growing pains — the Travis' leftover effect — pummelling my hammies to submissive openess. All's good.
Cathe Tuesday:
Then on Tuesday I did the awesome Cathe's XTrain All Out Low Impact HIIT. My achilles have been feeling a touch twingy lately from all that plyometric jumpy fun I've been having. Been icing diligently but thought what better time than this to try her dvd. Man, this got my heart rate up. It was funtastic.
She uses alot of low impact cardio moves that really hit the quads hard making it anaerobic too. Those quads burn!! There was floor work then step work and finally glide disc. I'm still having trouble with those discs. I can't quite keep my feet on them without them sliding off during the exercises. I'm trying to figure out what the magic trick is. But overall this was an amazingly fun, challenging, HIIT, quad quaking sweatfest without any impact that left my quads nice and sore the next day. I even felt the soreness in my vastus medialis muscle (the teardrop) muscle close to my knees. Nice! This is a muscle that's always been hard for me to engage properly yet is key to keeping my patellas stabilized. So, it's nice to know that all those vastus medialis leg extension machine exercises that I do at the gym is paying off.
Kino Wednesday:
And I topped it all off tonight with my favorite beautiful ashtangi yogini teacher, Kino's Primary dvd. Not that I don't have other fav yogi teacher's ~ we all know me and Travis ~ but sorry Travis I have some other loves too. lol!
With Kino's dvd, I love her pacing which is a bit quicker and her impressive non-stop dialogue of instructions. Some will love the chatter and some won't. I love it. It actually keeps me focused and in the zone. Also, if you really listen to what she's saying her directions are a phenomenal gold mine of tips, teaching and guidance into each posture. Literally a treasure chest of information. And I got to practice my jump backs and throughs. I will master you yet! Funny, the Travis set has helped give me more strength and stamina for the primary which is a nice bonus. I'm actually not surprised as I thought it might.
Hmmm, I don't think I was successful in keeping it short. Oh well!
So, it's been a good week so far and it's just past hump day! Now it's all down hill from here. Weeee!
... practice, schedule ~ do whatever works ~ and all is coming.
O.M.Gerd!!! Travis, babe, you're killing me! Lor' give me strength! Or rather, if I keep this up, Travis & God WILL give me strength! ... That's the way I felt doing his amazing Cardio disc on his amazing 108 day odyssey, 12 disc yoga program. (Psst, I'm not really doing the 108 days, as I'd get super bored doing any program that long plus I need the cross-training, and he'd do in my already misaligned shoulders through no fault of his own. Just that too much chatarunga's does not make my shoulders too happy.) And I do love his Bryan Kest like rhyming (there's no doubt he was taught by him) which I find keeps me focused, trancelike and happy. And you need it through this one.
I loved Cardio! Maybe it's because I'm a closet adrenalin junkie. And this will give you your fix. No question about it. Now, this disc is not a misnomer. This is a one non stop, breathless, power vinyasa flow. There is NO rests in downdog except for the very first one in his version of sun salutation A. And from then on in it's all systems GO! Remember when I said in my last post about him, he'll make downdog feel like a resting posture? Well, you'll be begging for one now. He takes us through about 5 of his versions of sun sal A's before going into 5 of his versions of sun sal B's, which include 3 legged downdog, knee to nose, leg back up then through to high lunge. When you get back to chair pose in sun sal B you sit there and do a flow from arms up to chest to thigh with arms back then sitting back up with arms up. The first cycle you do one of these in chair then you do that same flow in high lunge on each side. Then you cycle back to chair doing the flow 2x in chair and 2x in high lunges and you go on until you complete 5 cycles. It looks benign upon previewing but man by the 2nd cycle your legs are starting to burn in chair pose and the burn gets hotter and hotter as you go along. And the breathe gets louder and louder. Remember there's NO breaks. THEN after the 5th sun sal B you then go through vinyasa's from side to side 10 times! Yeah, you heard me, 10 times! Well, Travis, my babe, lost me there. I only made it through 6 cycles before I raised the white flag. By that time, I was a breatheless, sweaty, sniffling, leg quivering mess. As a Cathlete once said "I think I almost drooled." But it was amazing and I glowed afterwards. So, nevermind that I finished early, I have faith that when Travis, my babe, is finished with me, I will be one strong iron warrior woman!!
Everything is sore from sore muscles to sore eye. lol! I do love sore muscles as I know I did some crazay effective workouts. Like yesterday's amazing Xtrain Cardio Leg Blast by Cathe which made my quads and hamstrings sore and the day before Travis' Ultimate Yogi Flexibility which darn well did in my butt, hamstrings and shoulders. So, I've got DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) setting in nicely now. Yowza! With that a rest day was in order today. And to top it all off my left eye began feeling achy when doing some minor grocery shopping in my neighbourhood. Today was the first day I went out with my eyes fully undressed from the protective sunglasses the doc gave me. And my eyes felt the wonky vision full on in broad beautiful daylight. My eyes are so miss matched blurry that the walking around trying to focus through the brilliant haze proved a little too much too soon. Thank goodness I wasn't out too long and still managed to enjoy the fall sunlight. I even took this beautiful vision of a picture above on the way home which made me almost and I say almost love fall! lol! But I digress ...
Xtrain Cardio Leg Blast by Cathe
I did Cathe's amazing Cardio Leg Bast for the first time yesterday. I had this disc for a while but had to shelve it until my knees grew stronger. So, now I'm enjoying some good ol jumping cardio. It reminds me of my ballet days doing all the beautiful jumping floor work. I felt so light, lithe and strong back then and it makes me feel the same now, so exhilerating being finally able to do it again.
This is a great cardio and moderately heavy weight leg circuit workout with 12 rounds of about one minute plyometric cardio blast (HIT) with one moderate weighted leg work for about a maximum 16 reps which you repeat 12 times. The first 6 rounds are done off the step and the next 6 rounds are done on. No exercises are repeated so it's really fun. At first I used slightly lighter weights than Cathe and crew wanting to play it safe with my knees but then realized if I wanted to feel any burn with just 16 reps I needed to match or go heavier with the weights. So when I hit the round where we did plie squats — my legs are strong for this — I went with my 50lb barbell than their lighter pound dumbbells. I also added some extra pulse squats to the squat section to feel more burn and instead of doing their side lunges after that set — my knees do NOT like side lunge motions — I did pop squats interspersed with jump ropes. I found this more effective for my quads following quad style plyos with weighted quad work. It employs the quad muscles in a way that forces the quads to get strong very fast. Also, I noticed that, especially with the jumps on the step, I bend my knees more than the crew does. I think my ballet training has alot to do with this. This technique creates a softer, quieter, more controlled landing and also takes the impact into the quad and calf muscles more than the knees. Thus protecting the joints while building powerful, more explosive lean legs. I did have to take some extra breathes here and there but all in all I was able to keep up nicely and ALMOST completed the workout. I got to round 11 and quit. Naughty girl! I didn't realize there was only one more to go!
The music was great and keeps you going when it gets hard and was one of the reasons I was able to even get to round 11 and also I love step work. Cathe's a pro at using amazingly hip music and crescendoing it at just the right moments to keep you fired up and getting that extra wind to take you to the next level. Really amazing! (Can you tell music is very important to me for workouts. It actually will make or break what would be a very good workout for me. Cathe is a genius for this most of the time. The one time she derailed was when she did her amazing STS heavy weight periodization program where for me the music did NOT work.)
I forgot to do the bonus Burn Set Bi's at the end. But was probably wise that I forgot. As I'm feeling the sore today and don't need anymore added to it. That's another wonderful thing about Cathe is she's so generous (Amy Bento does the same too) she always adds premixes to all her dvds and sometimes adds bonus workouts from her other dvds in the set. Which she really went all out on with her Xtrain set. Kudos Cathe!
... so practice, get nice and sore, and all is coming.
Waaaa! I can't believe I lost my mojo! Well to be clear I actually lost my pick up jump back strength. Before, with regular Mysore practice (my regular is once a week, said sheepishly), I was able to lift myself up and swing my feet through my my arms and hold it there in a bent armed lolasana for like five seconds with feet off the ground and all! I was practicing this at home as supplementary practice to gain strength for full jump back. And I was astounded as to the strength gains I made with just doing my Mysore class once a week, no skipping jumpbacks between sides (huge impact) and another shorter Ashtanga practice weekly, gave me huge inroads on my strength in this area. I could actually hold bent armed lolasana with feet fully off the ground which to me was amazing! Before this was unthinkable. I felt strong like bull!! Haha!! But I had a sneaky suspicion that this strength gain could very well be elusive if I don't keep up my consistent practice and do these exercises regularly. Well wouldn't you know life got in the way!! Waa!! As noted before one of my weaknesses is having terrible stamina, in life as well as in practice. Well as it turned out for the past month, extra time at work what with looming deadlines just before leaving on a one week vacation for laser eye correction surgery (in both eyes no less, so excuse me for any typos, etc as I'm majorly squinting through a thick fog right now) really made a dent in my practice. I'm just not good at juggling. Now four weeks later I thought let me practice my jumpback, great idea right?! Ha! Low and behold I can barely hold my feet off the ground! It's atrocious!! Grrrr!
Oh well, all is not lost. I have a full week off from work. No deadlines, no overtime. Yeah! Since I just got both my eye's lasered and tasered yesterday (the taser is the corneal cross linking I also got on my right eye to stabilize my wonky cornea) and I'm in a huge disorienting foggy cloud with extreme light sensitivity which feels like my eyeballs are burning off. Despite that it went really well beyond the twitching legs, nausea inducing PAIN with a capital P!! AND they forgot to pack my Demeral, Valium and sleeping pills. I resorted to downing good ol faithful Aspirin to take the edge off. Though, mind you, I haven't taken anything like Demeral and Valium in over 15 years, neither for eye surgery or post surgery (I've had two previous eye lasers done but only one eye at a time — makes a world of difference!— two eye's being the worst in pain, OUCH!). However it would"ve been nice to know it was there purely for psychological reasons! Haha! The great news was my doc gave me the go ahead to workout since what I got was PRK not the LASIK flap version (not safe to workout for a week with the flap version), so I'm good to go!! Yippee!! My eye's are still sore and focusing for long is a strain and disorienting. But hopefully by tomorrow I'll do a small practice and by Monday I can get my butt in full gear with a whole week of freedom ahead of me to get my mojo back! Lol!
... so CONSISTENTLY practice AND keep getting back on the horse if life gets in the way and all is coming.
The other night I decided to do what Bob Marley invokes and just to Get Up Stand Up (... stand up for my rights!) in Samastitihi! If I can just get myself into that position then by all "rights" I can get my butt moving. As it's all downhill from there. So that's what I did to psych myself up to do my practice. It worked. Oh, and a promised treat of my delectable and oh so moist and delicious homemade chocolate blueberry muffin for my dinner. Shhh! Don't tell anybody. ... A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!
... practice — however you can, even if you gotta use a Bob Marley invocation and a muffin — and all is coming!
Well more good intentions out the window. Project deadlines continue to crash down on me at work so I didn't make it to Mysore once again. I forsee a pattern repeating itself until the end of next week. And I see my yoga clothes and mat rotting away on my office floor no less. I'm scared they're going to start thinking of me as the very delinquent and flaky yogi at my school! lol! I'm just going to have to say, "But, but, I had very good intentions" But I digress ...
So once again the very flexible yogi that I am, I went home and did Kino's very excellent Primary series DVD. Among my many Ashtanga vid's (I have a few, oops! David Swenson, Beryl Bender Birch, John Scott, David Garrigues, Ease Into Ashtanga by Yoga Hawaii among others, must do reviews on some of them as there so good in different ways.) Kino's has very nice pacing. Somebody said it's the same as Sharath's pacing. It lends itself more to my own breath count which is a little faster than most (due, I'm quite sure, to years of smoking in the far away past. Ouch!). And I just love moving a little quicker as I have less dread factor. Haha! I tend to need to move a little quicker so it doesn't feel as much of a mental and physical slog especially when I'm feeling very fatigued or sleepy. Though saying that, I do like to relax into the seated poses especially when I want to go deep or need a wee bit of calculated strength mustering. I tend to find ashtanga at home can feel so daunting after work and doing it at more of a clip with great music on really helps me to focus and "Just Do It or Just get it on" if you know what I mean.
Anyway it was a good practice after mentally psyching myself to "get it on the mat!" and almost backing out twice. My music helped with momentum and Kino's wonderful cues got me in the zone. I lacked a little sweat factor in standing but my seated was no shortage as I didn't shirk my vinyasa's. Yeah! Man those vinyasa's can keep you warm especially when you don't cheat and do them between sides.
Practice Overview
I'm just going to speak about the positives and accomplishments in practice this time:
• I can now touch my chin to shin in parvottanasana
• Also in parvottanasana I can get my hands in backwards prayer without being super warm. Before I could only do this in class as my wrists and shoulders are super tight. My shoulders are another story which deserves another post, no pun intended. lol! So this is quite an improvement. Though bottom palms of hands remain apart. (Oops! Wasn't supposed to say negs.) But will get there yet!
• My forward folds are getting deeper and deeper with torso now skimming legs. Way awesome.
• My marichyasana C twists are getting deeper and deeper. I can fully bind with hand to wrists and my twists feels deep and sweet. Improvements would be loving to see my shoulders more level. Hopefully that will come in time as my shoulders open more, I think?
I did up to the marichyasana's and left Kino there. I felt SO accomplished having done it since I honestly have to psych myself up each time. But it makes it all the more rewarding when I complete it. Hallellujah! Also, was quite proud that I did two practices in a row. Not common for me as I do still need to be cognizant of my wrists and not work them two days in a row. So slap my wrists! It's always nice to break the rules sometimes!
Didn't make it to Mysore today. Had all good intentions with bag and mat all packed and lugged to work. But work took over, and client demands must be answered to. So of course had to work late. Humf! It's so funny as suddenly our client is all giddyup whereas before it was all dribs and drabs and twiddle of thumbs. Oh well at least the day goes by faster and you feel very productive. But none-the-less I missed my class.
So what does a girl do, have a flexible plan as always! Home practice here I come and I can choose what I feel like doing no less! So I felt like some levity and happiness instead of the oh so deep and focused ashtanga. And who fits that bill better than Eoin Finn's Power Yoga for Happiness to get a smile on my face. A year ago he even tickled my feet, so I know he'll get me happy! Now don't get any ideas it was in a class he held at my yoga school. Haha! And he has the most amazingly smooth and well directed voiceover with just the right verbal cues to get you deep and rightly aligned in a pose. Yet the atmosphere is happy and playful which just gets me in a good mood. Can't beat that.
What I love too about this disk, or disks as there's 2, is that there's a great balance of power yoga and ashtanga. But less intense and more fun. It allows me to get my bhanda on and be stronger in my arm balances without being so poopered out as in a full ashtanga class. He even includes jump thrus and backs from seated -- can you tell I love those -- though still unmastered! And he sprinkles in some great arm balances such as crow, galavasana, vasisthasana, the fun and challenging tittibhasana to crow to chatarunga and the very impressive astavakrasana thru to chatarunga. Just love that one as I can now do it on my right side. YES! Don't ask about the left, that's a sorry sight. And it's a 2 disk package with five different practices of varying lengths to choose from. He's a very generous and innovative guy. Love him! Oh and just love his little doggy doing updog in the vid too! Now if that don't get a smile on I don't know about you!
So all in all I still got a good practice, felt accomplished and finished with a happy face!
Practice and all is coming ...
P.S. This dvd was one of my many faithful go to's when I still hadn't yet stepped into a yoga studio while I was recovering from chronic fatigue. I could never do I full session but I always did what I could.
I want to look like this coming out of bhujipidasana and supta kurmasana!
Is it wrong??? I can look like that when doing the old faithful crow. It never lets me down. And jumping back from that is a weeeee! So much fun. But doing it from bhuji and supta makes a fool out of me. Instead, even if I get into bhuji right my stamina is so spent that I can't barely get out for flopping. Then when I exit from supta kurmasana my exit is the novice way where my knees are flopping off the sides of my arms in a very cumbersome manner that it's practically impossible to jump back. I need to get to the core of things and find core lift to be able to get the knees higher. But by this time my stamina is at an all time low so I can't do bhuji and the exits out of it justice. Yet the whole point IS in building that stamina, which of course, as I said before, is not my strong point. Oh well, so much to learn in ashtanga that it's probably why I keep on coming back to the mat.
Once again made it Mysore. I don't know why it seems like a feat but it still is. lol! But I digress ...
I had a great practice felt a bit stronger and smoother in my movements and had a better breathe/flow. Nice when the breathe becomes more coordinated with my movements. This has always been a sticking point for me and still is as I'm horrifically multi-task challenged. Breathe and movement, whaaaa??? But man how it feels gooood when I finally get to flow in the zone! One thing I've noticed though is I have an unusually fast breathe count. So I tend to slip in some extra breathes in postures or trick myself by starting my count on the second or third breathe. It's my cheat to go deeper in a posture. And my sneaky tactic in seated -- very useful indeedy -- to buy me extra time to rest, go deeper AND build the extra mojo I need for the lift-up-jump-backs. Whatever works I say! Haha!
Put Down Your Braces and Pose!
I decided to do something new and test my knee health by putting down my knee braces and pose without them! Yeah! Just for most of standing up to utthita hasta padangushthasana. I want to see how my knees fair with jumps and warriors. I then put them on for the rest of the practice. So far so good! Will know more tomorrow as my knees sometimes have a naughty delayed response. Cross fingers!
Postures & Practice
I actually did the half lotus on my right side for ardha baddha padmottanasana. That was amazing as I'm usually only able to do that on my left side. Yeah! I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. lol! Though in seated my right was having none of it! Oh well, just keep on keeping on and one day, surprise! I'm trusting this practice as it never ceases to amaze me how due diligence really works it's magic on my body. And how sweet it is when the opening does inevitably come!
My jump backs were a wee bit stronger same with my jump throughs being more consistent. Made it to the marichy's before I needed to do the old plant hands down and plop back. Even my marichy's seemed more bindable and twistable. I practically got my knee down in mari-B on the first side. Totally cool. Of course the second side there is NO half lotus to speak of. All in good time, all in good time.
Urdhva dhanurasana was abysmal! That is SO inconsistent! One day I can get up, another day I'm a beached whale. Today was the latter. Yowza! Same goes with headstand. Took 3 freakin tries to get up with straight legs AND S. had to help me up on my last go round. Waaaa??? And don't talk about lowering to 90! That was a total bailout. Last time I did it I was able to get up on my own and do 90. What the flip! Ah, the mystery of inconsistency! Who can explain it.
Finally I made it to mysore! Every time I make it to mysore I feel like I climbed Mount Everest. Don't know why but I feel like I accomplished a feat. Hopefully it will get easier for me and a little less daunting the more I find my schedule groove and practice groove. Have I told you my nemesis is stamina and endurance. And ashtanga works that to my very core that weights and cardio do not. But I digress ...
Here's my proud notables:
• Felt smoother in my practice and I wee more stamina. Just a wee. Woohoo! I can now see how this could get stronger and less arduous AND more shall I say meditative for me.
• Totally missed out parshvakonasana and the twist! And that's such a fundamental posture in standing! Thought I was doing so well in my flow and only realized when I went to bed that I skipped it. Haha!
• Bhuja pidasana was nothing to write home about. Was able to wrap my legs and tilt a bit but nowhere near the ground yet. Still worried about my wrists. Then exit was a total disaster. Totally flubbed getting my legs into bakasana and then it was just a droop down from there.
• However, I redeemed myself in supta konasana which I did all by myself! It was rather kinda awesome even though I was so looking forward to S.'s assist because she likes and I LOVE when she folds my feet behind my head. I just LOVE it! I'm thinking freak is she really doing that and is my legs really letting her??? I always feel like WOW I have arrived! I NEVER in my wildest dreams thought I could do that. And also it's such a stereotypical yogic tied-up-in-knots-sorta-contortion-pose that I always felt unattainable to the lay innocent that it thrills me to no end that I'm halfway there! lol! But anyway she didn't do that famous assist and just let me do my thang. And I did! I was able to not only finger bind but wiggle my feet side-by-side and as I eye-balled it I felt that I could just somehow wiggle my right foot on top of my left and wouldn't ya know it with her verbal encouragement I caught that last wind to do just that and totally bound my feet! It was pretty satisfying I must say! And my exit was way better, was able to get both legs into bakasana and do an almost jump back into chatarunga. Not bad.
• Urdhva dhanurasana was an eye opening experience. I totally flubbed the first try. Couldn't get up for the life of me and thought I was a goner for the next 2. And was hoping I could just slip by it. No chance! But for some inexplicable, what I can only say miraculous reason, I was able to push up with unusual super human strength the next two making very reasonable for me wheels. I was flabberghasted! Totally amazed where all this strength came from out of nowhere!
• By headstand I'm usually at my worst energy wise. But I once again surprised myself. Number one I was able to go up with floating straight legs. Yeah! I was too wankered the last time to do that. Number two, even though my teacher spotted she didn't have to touch me at all, I was able to balance on my own. But then I bailed when trying to do the 90º hold. So what does an amazing teacher do when she's trying to build your stamina. Get right back on that damn horse and do it again! And so I did with her wise encouragement to lower not to 90º but to as low as I can hold it for to build my strength and endurance.
This is why I LOVE mysore and keep on coming back to my personal Mount Everest!! So I can make my mountain a molehill!!
And no, I'm not talking about shorts this time. It's because I did nada! Nada thing! Because I had a super-duper wonderful weekend and then celebrated my awesome nephew's birthday last night. So there!
One's still gotta schedule in some fun now and then. Life's too short! No pun intended.
P.S. Maybe hitting Mysore tomorrow night. If I can muster my lazy sitbones back into gear after basking in the afterglow!
And finally, finally, I actually looked almost like it! Awesome! ...
I always wanted to fold over my legs like my many favorite yoga teachers, Kino, Kathryn Budig, Dice Iida-Klein, with a FLAT back, no space and with my face at my shins. Well, last night it was so warm and I just felt like doing some practice postures to get my flex on and by my third fold and press I kept going down and down and down and lengthening and lengthening! I thought shoot man this feels like IT! So I went to my trusty mirror (see my "Through the Looking Glass" post if anybody's watching) and low and behold I was pretty much there! Man that was SWEET! Really, really SWEET!
But never to be satisfied! This is my next Mount Olympus so that I can do Titti's!!
I thought I'd share some tips for creating your own jump back to chatarunga home practice session to build strength and coordination. I try to do this once or twice a week when my wrists allow. Unfortunately, I don't do a 5-6 day a week ashtanga practice to build strength and lift only in that way as the lovely teacher in the "Finding Your Lift" workshop did. I find without that dedicated 6-day practice, and probably even if I did, I must do extra homework in order to make the impossible possible for me. Definitely gotta get more consistent with this, cause I WANNA DO IT! I'm an ashtanga crim! Yowza!:
Here's a great vid of the wonderful Maria showing a breakdown of the motions for the full jump back in slow-mo. It's her version of slow-mo! She's slowing it down herself NOT the video. SNAP!
To Practice Cultivating This Type of Strength I:
Practice HOLDING for a number of reps and breathes:
1. Sitting in a tight tuck with shins crossed hold knees as tight as you can to chest and feet as tight as you can to sitbones. Without using arms of course. The arms should be extended in front like the beginning position of the top video. In fact your working towards holding a delicious tuck like that beginning position. Hold, hold, hold! Shewf!
2. Lolasana holds: blocks are your BF here. But notice I didn't add the extra F as eventually ya just gotta to let them GOoooo!:
• with both feet on floor
• with one foot off floor
• with BOTH feet off floor — Oooh yah, I said that right! Here's a great example of a pseudo-lolasana hold for core, lats, deltoid, hip flexor and leg strengthener from the divine, omnipresently giving, Kino:
• then the pièce de résistance: with both arms bent and feet off floor! SNAP!
P.S. I got all this info from my many youtube sightings, blog readings,
the wonderful workshop and from Maria herself. The lovely Maria Villella
has an awesome practice video for this and more. Which I have and
covet! Check it out at www.yogiclife.com/store and you can visit her at www.mariavillella.com.
Well I followed my Friends Week 1 Schedule with some few tweaks. Here's the original schedule:
If Out With Friends:
SAT: Gym Legs & Back work (See how my wrists handle the weights. Got a bit of wrist issues)
SUN: Home Practice
MON: Step (Cathe Friedrich: 4 Day Split Higher Intensity Step)
TUES: Mysore
WED: rest
THURS: Out with Friends
FRI: Home Practice
SAT: Gym Legs
Here's what I ended up doing. Still got my goals in there though I had to flipflop:
Post-Mortem:
SAT: Gym Legs & Back work (my wrists handled the weights with flying colours!) SUN: Step (Cathe Friedrich: 4 Day Split Higher Intensity Step + Namaste Yoga Season 1, Ep11, forward fold to lunge to standing splits sequence. That's such a nice flowy stretch sequence, perfect for post cardio. And my hips and hamstrings were nice and opened after jumping around. Felt amazing!) MON: rest TUES: The Rocket DVD (couldn't make it to Mysore, had to work late) WED: Friend reunion. Totally fun! THURS: Mysore (totally awesome, had the teacher all to myself at the end. Nice!) FRI: Too.Much.Grocery.Shopping.Yikes! SAT: rest SUN: The fun and fab Finding Your Lift Workshop
Here's My Lazy Flexibility Reigns Week 2 Schedule:
MON: nada! TUES: Gym Legs and Back WED: nada! THURS: Mysore FRI: hmmm ... will see SAT: hmmm ... be flexible SUN: hmmm ... flexibility reigns supreme Lol! Gotta have some lazy flexible weeks where you do what you feel. I may wake up and feel like yoga or I may wake up and feel like jumping around. And that could even change as the day wears on. Who knows my hmmm days may turn out to be VERY active AND flexible. ; )
Well actually it was a Finding Your Lift workshop but the way A., our workshop teacher, demo'd it hers was practically a levitation! No joke! Awe inspiring!! Just like those amazing lifts and holds AND changes in direction IN mid air you see on Youtube! Wow and double wow! Just like this (except she also showed how to change direction in mid-flight, and go into handstand, etc. Yowza!). The point is you wanna lift lightly and land lightly to get your float ON!:
And I got the DVD for this one:
But I digress ...
Here was the workshop breakdown and key points. I'm trying not to look at the wonderful notes she gave us — how very generous of her — as I want to only get down what I remember and not feel like I'm plagiarizing her:
Overarching Key Points and Goals:
• transfer of weight from feet to hands and hands to feet
• to lift and land lightly
• to gain lift and lightness in your practice it's important to really pay attention throughout your whole practice to your form in plank, chatarunga and any arm balancing you do as this is KEY to strengthening and stabilizing your shoulder and shoulder girdle for lightness and weight transference. Use every opportunity to employ proper form even to doing extra chatarungas in your practice, as chatarunga is the base for so many balancing postures.
Jump Back to Chatarunga:
• First she explained that "jump" is a misnomer. As it misleads you to think that your just jumping haphazardly and flinging yourself rather willynilly into space. Whereas you must think of it as a transfer of weight. Your transferring it from your feet to your hands and vice-versa. It's a deliberate and controlled jump and or lift causing the weight to transfer into your hands/arms to a hang in the air catching your balance as in a handstand/hand balance (which is really what your literally doing) then down to plank/chatarunga or straight into chatarunga. You have to have an attitude shift here.
• When you transfer your weight always think deliberately to PUSH your hands into the floor with straight arms.
• Use your fingertips to keep your balance when you catch the hanging/pause. This is the same action as in a handstand to keep you from falling forward over your body. It keeps your balance. Fingertip action is VERY important in all the hand balancing and jumps. Who would of thunk!
• Always hands FLAT down and the position will be in front of your feet in the beginning and also finding the perfect distance from feet that's best suited for you to start this approach. Keep the hands shoulder width apart and arms straight. As you get better at this and more flexible your hands can then go closer and closer to your feet until they're beside your feet.
• When jump lifting, you lean forward and with hands flat and arms straight, you transfer your weight into your hands whilst really pushing your hands into the floor you jump lift your hips and feet up, thinking of lifting hips up almost to handstand and lower to plank/chatarunga. You start by doing it bent leg and as you become super-yogi you can start moving your legs back with straight legs.
• As you get better at this you will eventually catch a balance and can hang/pause there as you're literally in a handstand balance before shifting your feet back into chatarunga. It was so cool as I was starting to find this as I was doing it. Felt amazing. Although there wasn't much of a pause, but I was getting my hips up there! Wee!
• The final phase is being able to press to lift: This is when you're the bomb-yogi and got your float on and have mega-bandha control! You can now lean forward, press the weight into your palms again transfering the weight into hands/arms, employing those mega-steal bandha's to lift your legs slowly to a pike position and lower to chatarunga! Nice!
Jump to Feet From Downdog:
• Think transfer of weight again into your hands with straight arms and hips lifted when jumping.
• It's important to look forward slightly beyond your hands to cause your feet to follow.
• Tighter hamstrings (most of us) will use bent legs. Only when your hamstrings are super/duper loose can you really do it with straight legs.
• Get your weight in your hands/arms when jumping with bandha control and allow for a controlled landing to feet.
• Use the end of the breathe out to "float" in the air to land. This allows for a compacted/controlled/bandha'd torso for floating forward.
Jump Through to Seated:
This was alot of fun. She taught us different approaches for doing it with bent legs. Too much juicy details to get into here. Sorry guys/gals. Suffice to say, she said it's actually harder and requires more strength and coordination to do it bent legs than straight legs. Yeah, as I do it bent legs and always thought that it was the kinda loser way to do it. I thought of it as the more inelegant, less practiced approach and in actual fact it's harder! Awesome! She finds the straight legged approach easier for women as they tend to have looser hamstrings and employs less strength. But you must have very loose hamstrings and can practically just fall into a perfect seated straight backed chin to shin forward fold to do this properly. Of which I do NOT have. I always had a sneaky feeling you needed that flexibility to do it anyway. In fact she can do both perfectly as she demo'd so well, but she said she purposely does mostly bent legged as she wants to train herself in strength. Neat!
Jump Back:
Misnomer again as it's a lift up swing through to lolasana to chatarunga arms lolasana to chatarunga dandasana. So many things to keep in mind AND to practice here but the essentials are:
• Try using a block in your practice half of the time to get the coordinated lift up swing through to bent arms to chatarunga
• When swinging through you need to bend your arms to chatarunga arms in order for your hips to go up at the back so you can kick your feet back to chatarunga. It's again a transfer of balance since when you bend your arms your front goes down so your hips can go UP.
• Practice holding a tight tuck, knees to chest, crossing at the shins not the ankles, holding your feet close to your butt. As that is key for being able to get your feet through. Now if I could do that, I'd be going places! I still have oodles of trouble getting my knees to tuck to my chest properly (I think weak hip flexors comes to mind) and it's still hard to tuck my feet close to my butt. Now try doing that when gravity takes over in lolasana and you'll see what I mean! lol! Oh well!
• She had us practice many types of lift up manouvers back and also to practice lolasana with two legs, then one leg on the floor, then bending arms to chatarunga with one leg on the floor (practically impossible for me!) and then using that position to jumpback with the other foot springing you back. SHEWF!! That can give me LOTS of homework!
This was an awesome workshop by an amazingly generous, knowledgable, organized teacher — I love when teacher's are methodical and organized when building our knowledge base — and was really good at getting the message across and how to incorporate it in our real day-to-day practice.
She said it took her 5 years to learn "to get her float on" as I like to say. And that the key for her and the key for us is to really incorporate those techniques throughout our practice day in and day out. And as for the jumpbacks in seated she used her blocks religiously to get the coordination and lift to swing through to bended arm to chatarunga. It was practice.practice.practice. I see a pattern here. Lol! She said it.was.time.consuming, it.was.tedious, it.was.exhausting, it.was.cumbersome but yet it was all worth the effort to build the strength, stamina, coordination, lightness and flow in the practice.
I wear shorts for yoga. I mean short shorts. Like hawt, hot yoga shorts. Like Kino shorts. And I LOVE them! I have a great excuse for baring myself so audaciously. Number one get a clean mind! Number two I wear knee braces. I have to. So there! Do you know how knee braces look under yoga pants/tights. Awful, ridiculous, bulky, undignified, tied up, suffocating and HOT! Need I say more. And I get sweltering in class. I mean I can sweat buckets! I sweat more in a yoga class than when I do a high intensity HIIT plyometric style step aerobics! No joke. So the less material I got tying me up and suffocating me (as I really feel like I'm suffocating!) the better. Yoga shorts have liberated me. I've got them in all sorts of colours, the brighter the better. Makes me feel like a happy clam and a bright sunny flower trying to turn to the sun just like in our sun salutes and postures where we turn sideways. I always like to think we're trying to turn towards the sun just like flowers. Love the analogy. I even have a black skort — a skirt and a short in one. Looks like a very cute mini-tennis skirt. Thank you Lulu! And I'm so glad I'm following in some great footsteps like Kino! She rocks them. You go gurl! ... Maybe Kino and I can start a trend to liberate all!
Praise be to HAWT, hot yoga shorts! May Kino and I rock them foreva and eva and eva!
