Waaa!! Lost my Mojo!

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. 

Cross-training and Having a Blast with Step Blast!

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.

Practice and all is coming ...

Mysore and My Money's Worth

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" ....