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.
Had a blast with Cathe Friedrich's Step Blast today! This woman knows how to literally BLAST you into the stratesphere with her blasts of high intensity intervals! If you want to build your VO2 max fast she's definitely the way to go for a short cut. Pretty much all her aerobics will incorporate high intensity blasts to push you to your limits. She wastes no workout getting you to your max output one way or the other. And it's always fun! This is an oldie but goodie step workout where it's pretty much high energy steady state for the warmup and 3 combo's then when she puts the combinations together at the end called "The Challenge" she adds in high intensity plyometric intensity blasts between each go around. It's awesome! Check out the video starting at 5:31, 6:19 and 6:51 and and you'll see her start adding in the intensity blasts. Her last blast at 6:51 is a doozer (just drag the little ball over to 6:51, it will let you really it will) starting with benign 3 repeaters with an over the board, face, and over the board and then SURPRISE, 2 plyo-jacks followed by 2 air-jacks followed by one tuck jump and jump ropes and then you do the 3 repeaters, over face and over, plyo's, cycling through it 5 more times!! Yowza!! It's so freakin invigorating and fun, fun, fun!! A total BLAST!!
Cross-Training
I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to keep up with this one and not stopping too much to catch my breathe and doing most of it at full output. Awesome! What's also quite amazing is how I'm noticing that the cross-training with ashtanga, weights, and step aerobics is really benefiting each other. For instance what was so surprising is that I found the plyometric blasts easier than the steady state as my legs are getting so much stronger from my leg weight training (90lb leg extensions @ 6 sets-4 turned out and 2 straight, 100lb barbell plie squats @ 3 sets)! My legs are so strong from the weights that I don't feel it in them for plyo's which feels amazing. It just eventually hits me aerobic's wise. But that is even getting better fast as it becomes easier on my legs and also the stamina being built in my cardio capacity. Moreover, the cardio is causing my ujjayi breathe to be a bit more open and steady and contributing to a bit more stamina in ashtanga. Still a work in progress though! lol! So it's all feeding on each other. Quite remarkable but shouldn't be so surprising. Yet it's so neat to actually see the benefits of it.
Forgot to Post
Did an awesome weight workout on Saturday. As I still have to be careful with my wrists always wearing my wrist braces and weights gloves I have been able to start back a limited upper body routine. And of course always wearing my knee braces: So I got in my:
Back: (didn't overdo it this time. Shewf!)
• Seated Lat Pulldown: 3 x 12 (60lb)
• Seated machine row: 3 x 12 (60lb)
Leg Extensions: 90lb + weight plate
• feet turned out to get my vastus medialis to stabilize my patella, 1 x 18, 3 x 13
• feet straight to get overall quads, 2 x 10
Barbell Plie Squats: 100lb
• 2 x 16 reps + 4 reps of 3 pulse squats going for the burn
Pec Dec: 45lb
• great cause it doesn't require your wrists
• 3 x 12
Tricep Pushdowns: 75lb
• safer for my wrists right now than the cable pulldowns
• 3 x 15
Abs: Killer 80° incline bench
• 1 x 40, hands crossed on chest, KILLER!
• some mat frog leg situps, really gets your upper core especially when muscles are already worked!
• reverse situps and leg lifts to get lower core. Hoping this will benefit me with achieving, one day in the not so distant future, the floaty jump backs and forwards and fancy fun hand balancing postures.
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 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 made it to Mysore! And I got my money's worth! Woohoo! You see I paid $40 for a newbies unlimited 1 month trial. Awesome! But one has to make it worth their wile. And I was scared I wouldn't because I left for a one week vacation just after I paid thinking I'd get one class in before I left and then would have almost 3 weeks left to make up for lost time. Well you see, as luck would have it, my good intentions flew out the window. I was just too poopered to go the one class before leaving, turned out I just wanted to have a do nothing weekend. And off I went on my travels. And of course when I got back I was just too poopered again — the vaca lag — to ramp up that quickly. I did get in a class last week and I finally got there tonight. And have now done 3 classes which would be $60 normally. So not bad. Gotta do better. But I digress ...
I got my money's worth tonight in another way. It was a beautiful sweatfest! And oh boy I sweat! My 2 amazing teachers W-O-R-K-E-D M-E O-U-T! They take no guff! lol! They make me do ALL my vinyasa's. I used to skip between sides. Not anymore! And lor it's a workout! By the time I get to janu-B the pickups and pseudu drag backs have all but dissappeared. By the mari's they're gone, never to be seen again. By then I'm planting my hands down and jumping back. But I'm still jumping through. You GO gurl! Mind you I'm still trying to gauge where the teachers are in the room that perchance maybe I can let one slip between sides here and there. They're not having it. Haha!
THE DETAILS:
Utthita hasta padangushthasana: I got a great assist with her holding my leg as I fold over and helping my hip to stay down when to the side.
Ardha baddha padmottanasana: She gave me a great modification for my wonky right knee and stiff hip. To cross my right leg over my thigh just above my knee and then bend the left knee quite a bit so I can feel the stretch in my right hip and then take a forward bend from that position. Interesting and a great beginner's way to get the hip to open.
Bhuja Pidasana: One of my fav poses but my nemisis. Keep forgetting I'm supposed to cross my right foot over my left. Feels so awkward. I like it the other way, feels more comfy and natural. But that ain't ashtanga. lol! Still can't bend all the way forward. It feels like I'm going to break my wrist. So I do have to play careful with that move as my wrists are still wonky and I don't have great flexibility in it. So of course I kept falling out. It wasn't my best presentation! So S. had me do it like three times! Awesome! Then we just worked on the exit but by that time I just couldn't manage the lift one leg to the back while wrapping the other around the arm then lifting the other leg back before jumping to chatarunga. Fell out once again. Argh! However, she was awesome, she let me redeem myself by going into bakasana and jumping back. I can do that! Wee what fun!
Kurmasana and Supta Kurmasana!: Another fav. Now that was awesome! Had S. again adjusting me and man she tied me up good and proper. Yes! My head tucked just so under my feet crossed just so. Loved it. Then I got my hands beautifully wrapped. I was able to hook my fingers. I felt sublime! And then I was able to do a beautiful lift up (by my standards) AND watch this, I did get each foot back and did an almost jump back. Yippee!!
Urdhva Dhanurasana, Chakrasana and Closing: Had the wonderful S. practically as my one-on-one teacher by then talking me through all of closing and giving me great assists (my timing was perfect as people were leaving by then, nice!) : Urdhva, still a bomb! Arms could barely even attempt to straighten, that crazy back of mine! I was just knackered, but she made me do 3 none-the-less even though the last 2 were unrecognizable. Ouch! But she gave me a beautiful paschimottanasana squish. Nice! Then she helped me learn chakrasana — a work in progress. Must learn to really push off both hands in a just PUSH IT! mindset. Yowza! Continued through closing to headstand where I did it in the middle of the room for THE first time! Yeah! Was doing really good but couldn't straight leg raise as I was wonked. But balanced nice for the full breathe count though when it came time to lower to 90° I lost my mojo. Couldn't hold for the life of me and came D-O-w-n! Oh well, my stamina's got a ways to go!
I gotta say Mysore is magic! One day "Is all a-coming" ....
Well, well, well I am SORE! All over! I'm having a DOMsie day! To all in the dark as to what DOMs is, just in case per chance somebody in the wild blue yonder might be reading this, means delayed onset muscle soreness. Ouch! for short. My upper body is so sore, upper back, underarms, chest, triceps. Muscles I didn't now I had are sore and my legs are just starting to get sore. This all from yesterday's gym weights workout. Now, who told me to do 4 sets per exercise with full weights after being off for nearly 2 months to rest my wrists. I must've had my mind on autopilot. So I'm suffering today. I fear that the soreness in my legs is just the start of a beautiful mess of pain for the next days ahead. Oh well, I'm determined that I WILL get to my Mysore on Tues no matter whether my legs collapse or not! I will set my face as a flint. HaHa! But I digress ...
I had an awesome step aerobic workout today with one of my fav dvd instructors Cathe Friedrich (another fav is Amy Bento but her choreo is way dancey harder but just as athletic and her music is ROCKIN just like Cathe's but in a more hiphop rap way. Freakin amazing!). Plus I try to tack on a light yoga session afterwards as a cool down and stretch. Great combo. I did Cathe's 4 Day Split High Intensity Step which includes intensity blasts (like HIIT-high intensity interval training) at the end of the 3 combos. Man that's one great intensity workout in only 30 min. But I did have to stop once to catch my breathe as I've just started back from a 5 months hiatus for my knees. Her and Amy's cardio dvd's are great to build my aerobic capacity and VO2 max FAST and just plain fun! I love dancey choreography (that's from my ballet background) along with more athletic plyometric blasts and she gets it all in there in just 30 minutes! I skip her weight work at the end as I do my own at the gym. Not to say she won't work you out HARD. If you want to gain muscle FAST do Cathe's weight dvd's or her circuit dvd's. She will work you heavy or highrep or a combo of both like no other. With her dvd's you really don't have to go to the gym if you have a well stocked weights home gym like me (in the livingroom under my desk. lol!). She's really something to look into (you can see her on her own website www.Cathe.com, and can buy her on www.shop.cathe.com, amazon.com, TotalFitnessdvds.com, Collagevideo.com, etc. Can you tell I just love her!) Then I did Namaste Yoga's Season 1, Episode 11 dvd (they used to be on TV. They were so good I bought both their seasons, perfect for an after cardio stretch). Just the ticket to wind down with. It included forward fold, low lunge, front lunge stretch to parsvatonnasana to standing splits. All in a slow almost dancelike flow. Absolutely divine! And perfect for my legs to get the stretch without going into any warriors or torquey knee stretches to tax my knees after jumpy cardio. I can't overtax my knees. If I do cardio I will not do any other workouts tacked on that could challenge my knees again. So I will never mix up a leg workout with cardio or a leg workout with yoga, etc. unless if I do add a yoga it must NOT have any warriors or torquey knee thingy's in it. I have always relied on my hard earned motto of KISS (keep it simple stupid). And it's kept me moving so far. Shewf!
Can't wait to attend my first ever yoga workshop next weekend. It's called "Finding Your Lift." Exciting stuff! By my understanding I think it will be teaching you how to get lift for the ashtanga vinyasa transitions like jumping to standing, jumping through and back, etc. Those beautiful gymnasticy vinyasa's that help create a smoother and more floaty practice. I would love to see that day as I bet it's so much easier and smoother than the drag thru shuffle back! And the jump thru with matburn toes! lol! And I'm still learning to get over my fear of lifting my butt (or sitbones) when jumping. For some reason I keep feeling like if I lift my butt I'll just fly butt over head. Haha! I just can't get rid of that feeling! Argh! But as the saying goes ... practice and all is coming.
