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Lovely practice this morning. Two totally new people, one somewhat new person, and the regular Mysorians. Always interesting having new people — it changes the dynamic, because Volleyball Guy is pretty busy with them.

He asked me to help Sanskrit Scholar out in supta vajrasana, and as we finished up, she said, “Look at the paper over there.” There was a sheet of paper in the middle of the room, and I had a look: an announcement that Richard Freeman will be in Tucson on March 10 and 11. Scrawled across the page were the words, “Road trip!” Oh yeah, I’m in!

Best part of practice today was urdhva dhanurasana and dropbacks. Since Volleyball Guy was busy, I pulled my mat up to the wall and did six urdhva dhanurasanas, trying to push my chest toward the wall to open up my shoulders. It’s a fine example of slacking/overachieving. I am willing to do more than the prescribed three urdhva dhanurasanas, in order to improve my form (overachiever), but I don’t see the point of doing more than six (slacker).

On the overachiever/slacker front: I tried for wrist binds in marichyasana c and d this morning. Got the c binds, with a little fiddling around, and even managed, quite surprisingly, to get the d bind on one side. One thing about upping the ante on the binds is that it reminds me that my second side is always easier than the first. I’d managed to forget about that little imbalance…

So I did my urdhva dhanurasanas, and then stood up to do the hanging back exercise: where you just bend back and hang in space. Did a few of them and then Volleyball Guy came over. He had me hang back again as he stood in front and slightly to the side of me. As I hung there, he put a finger on my sacrum to help me understand where I was in space, and then he used his other hand to push down and back on each shoulder in turn, essentially helping to open my shoulders toward my sacrum. After hanging for a bit, he had me drop back to the floor, then come back up. We did that a few times. It felt controlled and made sense to me in a way that dropbacks never have before — I guess because I had to control the gravity more, versus leaning back into a normal assisted dropback.

In the vinyasa into sarvangasana (first picture on this page), I had the most intense, strong energy in my lower spine. Like everything had been put right and the lumbar area was super strong and the thoracic area light and flexible.

Even as I drove home, I felt really alert and happy. Mmmmmm. Backbends. I think I’m going to really grow to love them.

Yesterday I wrote about a little episode in practice that made me think about how I slack sometimes. Even as I wrote the entry, I was aware that I also tend to strive to overachieve. Fellow overachiever Vanessa wrote an interesting comment on yesterday’s post, and it makes me want to write a little more about the subject.

First off, though, a little on the psychological effect of Volleyball Guy adjusting me into wrist binds on marichy c and d. My first thoughts were, “Oh, I’ve been such a slacker, and he knows it, and now he is reprimanding me with this adjustment.” I actually felt kind of abashed. Then my rational mind kicked in and I recognized the fact that Volleyball Guy is not a reprimanding kind of teacher (or person) by any stretch of the imagination. It was just something I made up in my own mind, because I expect everything and everyone in the world to be judging me all the time. Sigh. Bottom line: he saw I could do it, he helped me do it, now I know I can do it. Carry on.

As Vanessa pointed out in her comment, practice really is always a dance. I always have a few things I am working on, but I try not to over-effort them (as much as possible for an overachiever). I keep myself in line by letting breath, bandhas and driste be my priorities. If my breathing is wacky or my eyes wandering, I know I have a place in the practice that I need to smooth out. If there are breaks in the flow, those are the things I try to resolve. The nervous feeling I can get around kurmasana because I hurt myself there once, for example. If breath, bandhas, and driste go haywire, I know I have a place I need to square away. The trick, though, is to try not to get overly focused on that place.

I went for the wrist binds on marichy c and d this morning during home practice. C was fine. A little struggle to grab the hands then work my way up the wrist, but not too bad. I can’t do it on just the one breath, but that’s okay. I have to take the chance of not being able to get the bind easily in order to up the ante a bit. Part of me thinks, “Aw, and I had it worked out so I could always get it and didn’t have to think about it!” That’s exactly what’s meant by the term “attachment.” When people ask me about Buddhism and attachment, they always say they don’t want to give up their attachment or desire for their loved ones, their lives, etc. I always want to laugh and say, “Nah, start with the smaller stuff” (like the attachment to always being able to do an easy hand bind). Desire is simply about attaching to something and being resistant to the fact that everything changes. The pain comes from wishing it wouldn’t. Practice is about learning to accept that no matter how you cling, you can’t hold on to anything. Lots of people see that as tragic. Some people see it as freedom.

Practice is about giving things up. Here’s a great example: On ezBoard, someone was talking about doing the Ashtanga poses, but skipping vinyasas and holding the individual poses for a longer time. They characterized it as doing Ashtanga the Iyengar way. I don’t mind one way or another what someone wants to do with the series. It does strike me, though, that the precise vinyasas, specifically the breath patterns for each vinyasa, are an exercise in giving things up. You follow the breath, and no matter how much you may be loving a particular asana, you have to move on after your five breaths. If you muck up an asana you’re struggling with, once your five breaths are up, it’s time to carry on. Missed it today? Try again tomorrow.

Essentially, the system is a little dance that requires that you regulate both your slacking and your overachieving. You can’t be too much of a slacker and do Ashtanga, and you can’t be too much of an overachiever. It is a tool to calibrate. Along with a teacher who may see, occasionally, that you can do more than you are currently doing. Someone who can, at the right moment, point out a new possibility.

I think I had a grand point, but now I’ve forgotten what it was

Let’s sum up: practice rocks.

***

An excerpt from this morning’s reading in Swara Yoga:

The breath goes out making the sound of Ham and comes in producing the sound So… the mantra manifests as an audible sound in the inner ear. On hearing this, one becomes freed from karma and samskara…

The sound we hear with the ears and the faculty of the brain is only one level of perception. If sound waves exist at the conscious level, they must also exist at the subtler levels… although we do not hear the subtler sound of the breath, it creates sound waves in the deeper realms of our consciousness.

As the breath becomes finer, the sound frequencies become more intense and subtle. In this way, they are heard internally from the subconscious realm, then the unconscious and finally the superconscious where sound becomes transcendental.

Sounds like the same deal of not slacking and not overachieving on the breath. Interesting. Just practice and keep to the middle way.

Got a schooling this morning in marichyasana c and marichyasana d.

Volleyball Guy cranked me in both. Remember that quote I mentioned a few weeks back, about how a teacher’s responsibility is to keep the student from taking the path of least resistance? As I was being cranked into breathlessness, I realized that I settle for my hand bind in both poses. On Saturdays, at led class, if it’s nice and hot, I’ll sometimes go for the wrist binds on marichy c. Today, though, it was all wrist binds. Truth be told, it was the first time I’ve ever even attempted a wrist bind on marichy d. Remarkably, all of this cranking was done the day after the Super Bowl. So I can no longer use the “I ate weird stuff yesterday” excuse for not going for the wrist binds.

And it was definitively proven that though I feel like my ribs are going to pop out from under my skin and my skull explode, deep deep twists really won’t kill me.

I felt a little abashed, once I understood how rote my marichyasanas have been. Okay, so in some ways, I’m a slacker. In other ways, though, I’m not. I practice my six days a week, I work hard, but I have my slacker moments: the settling for hand binds, the extremely crappy exits from bhujapidasana and supta kurmasana.

I have been reminded that part of my practice is on the path of least resistance. No more! Tittibhasana, here I come!

It had to happen, of course. I’d put the camera to use documenting adventures in backbending. It’s a cardio exercise, as it turns out. The timer button has to be pressed, then I have about 7 seconds to run back to the mat, get into position, and then there are three beeps before the flash goes off. I need to read the manual and see if I can adjust the amount of time on the self-timer. Or set it to go off at regular intervals, instead of needing to reset it for each photo.

I couldn’t resist taking some photos, though. I was cleaning the house, listening to Miles Davis, and the jazz got me revved up and ready to act on a whim. Pictures of urdhva dhanurasana!

When I see the results, I think: well, it’s better than it used to be, and not as good at it will eventually be. I am at the very beginning of this adventure, for sure. Right now my focus is on getting my arms straight.

You know, practice really is having an effect on me. In the past I would definitely have displayed a pose that I was really good at.

Led class yesterday: We started late, because there was an Ana Forrest workshop. Nice thing about workshops is that the room is pre-warmed. Downside: we start late and the floor is wet (euwww!). Good practice all around. Sanskrit Scholar to my right, Girl with a Red Mat to my left. Lots of new people again. Seems to be about 30% new people per Saturday led class.

In baddha konasana I was stuck in a balance pose: I push forward as far as I can, and then my butt rises off the floor, and my head doesn’t quite touch the floor, and I am just balancing on my ankles. Then I felt someone pushing down on my thighs, and then leaning onto my back. I didn’t recognize the hands. Not Volleyball Guy, not Sanskrit Scholar, and not Crim Girl, who are the only people who ever adjusted me in this pose.

Turns out it was The Gymnast. She attends Saturday led regularly, and Mysore whenever she can manage (she lives far away and has two little boys). Very good, strong adjustment. Afterwards she asked if it was okay and mentioned she remembered this was one of the poses I was really working on. Very thoughtful and generous of her.

And in other news: Super Bowl Sunday. We have a wealth of riches. Football and UFC. We bought and recorded the fights last night, since The Cop was at work and couldn’t watch them in real time. It used to be that we could buy a fight, record it, and then just watch it the next day, with no worries about hearing the results ahead of time. No news coverage, no one talking about it at work, no chance of anyone spilling the beans — unless, of course, Jenna is blogging about yet another Liddell victory Those days of little news coverage seem to be over. Now I have to be careful not to stumble onto the results online before we watch our recording. Last big championship fight, one of the other cops blurted out the results before The Cop got to watch.

Speaking of UFC and yoga: earlier this week, Volleyball Guy was adjusting a new Mysorian in Marichy D. Afterwards, he explained, “If you need me to stop an adjustment, just say ‘five.’ Or you can do this…” and he reached down and patted the floor three times. Renaissance Man was practicing across from me, and he looked up and we both grinned. “We can tap out!” we laughed. Yup, as in the UFC, so it is at Mysore practice.

Today we’ll be watching football in real time and the fights (shhh! don’t tell me who won!). LOL! I just thought of Kathy, who was wondering if watching lots of sports was a dating deal-breaker. I vote no! Sports rock.

I love Saturday. For a long time, I worked on Saturdays (back in the day of being a single Mom), and then through a couple of rounds of grad school, I did homework on Saturdays. It took a long time, once I was free of responsibilities, to relax on Saturdays. For a while there, I would get confused and do some of the household chores on Saturday and some on Sunday, and I’d never feel like I had any time to relax. Now, though, Saturday is my day off. Coffee, reading, led practice, possibly lunch with Crim Girl and/or Sanskrit Scholar and/or The British Director, then home for a nap and a little more reading until The Cop wakes up. Sunday is now officially the housekeeping day.

It’s currently 9AM, and The Cop is still not home from his shift. He, technically, is done at 6AM, but often on the weekends he runs late. This is FBR weekend, which someone at work referred to as the Happy Gilmore portion of the golf tour. Apparently the Phoenix/Scottsdale golf fans are extremely unruly. Makes for a long night for The Cop.

Again today I woke in a really cheerful mood. Breathing out of the right nostril. The first thing I really noticed though, was how sore my lats are. I think because of this suggestion from Vanessa:

Get a yoga strap and tie it around a broom, stick, something like that. Then throw the stick over a door and close the door shut (you need to be placed so that the door would open away from you). With your back to the door, raise your hands up, grab the strap and then making sure that your elbows stay parallel (instead of flaring out), just lean forward (elbows stay bent). This should open your shoulders quite nicely.

I expected that my elbows would flare out like crazy on this stretch, but apparently my practice is having some effect: my elbows stayed in pretty effortlessly. And, as I mentioned, the stretch is most effective.

Vanda’s book is terrific. Very poetic and evocative. I’ll post a few excerpts in a bit.

On ezBoard this morning, Spangled mentioned right brain activities. This one comment kicked off a good number of thoughts. For one thing, it made me realize that I woke up in a really good mood — relaxed, happy, optimistic. Just what I tend to think of as a right brain mood.

Then I thought a bit about work. I believe one of my issues with work is that it is so intensely left brain oriented. Again, for the record: I have nothing to complain about at work. I like what I do, I like the people I work with, I’m well-paid, and I like the organization I work for. Still, I feel like I am trying to WAKE UP (as the monks at the zendo might yell to help us out when we start dozing in zazen) at work. Sure, I go in every day, I am a high performer, my team is terrific and we get a lot done. But I get swept up.

Maybe it’s about left and right brain balance? I do find that since I’ve taken a few photos at work, I am looking around myself more, seeing more colors and shapes. Waking up the right brain a bit, perhaps.

If I remember correctly, swara yoga includes some techniques for using the breath to switch from right brain to left… Need to check that out. In the meantime, though, I can at least pay attention to my breath (specifically, which nostril is open and which closed) at different points throughout the day.

***

Today’s Mysore Practice Report: Ahhhhh. Today was one of those practices where everything felt great and nothing hurt. The krink in the sacrum that’s been around for a week was gone, my hamstrings were springy and happy. Renaissance Man and The Cat were across from me, and The Other Dave was beside me. Returning Guy was in the corner. I really do enjoy practicing with the Mysorians. Very comfortable and familiar and supportive.

Another part of what made practice so pleasant was also kicked off by my morning reading. Vanda Scaravelli wrote about extension, specifically the extension of the spine, and for some reason (her writing is very poetic and right brain) the idea really took hold of me. Throughout all of my practice, I felt my spine extending on the inhales, and it was just lovely. Also, because I am obsessive, I made note of the fact that I was breathing through my right nostril for the first half of the practice, and then both nostrils for the second half.

During savasana, I noted I’d switched to the left nostril. For some reason, I felt like I wanted to switch it back to the right, and I managed to remember enough of some other stuff I’ve read about techniques to do that. As soon as I was switched back over, I felt happy again.

Yoga really is transformative. Now I take photos at work and think about which nostril I am breathing out of. I have transformed into a crackpot.

I forgot to bring food with me this morning. As soon as I got in, I found myself embroiled in back-to-back meetings. Just now, at almost 5 PM, I stopped, took a breath, and thought, “I need to keep more food in my den.”

Den?!?!?!

Our coffeemaker has a timer, so coffee is always ready when I get up. Once the coffee is brewed, right around 4:15 AM, a little bell goes off four times. I almost never remember hearing the bell, but I generally wake just before my alarm goes off at 4:30. So apparently my subconscious hears it. And the cat. He knows the bell means it’s time to get up and moving because his breakfast is the next event of the morning.

I kind of want to laugh about how hard it was to get up this morning without coffee, but I also feel kind of sad and deprived. Despite the fact that now, as I write, I have finished practice and have a nice cup of coffee right here with me.

Yesterday, Jenna wrote about Ashtanga and how it has made her more structured, more a creature of habit, and I totally understand that. I’ve always been one for habits and schedules, and also of minimalism: I don’t like to have extra stuff around me, and I don’t like to have “extra” habits. I have a few constants, like practice, reading time in the morning, coffee time in the morning. (Hmmm, my ritual stuff is pretty much all in the morning.) Then I go to work, get caught in that riptide, which releases me in the evening, at which point I head home to spend some time with The Cop before he goes to work. Then I read a little before bed.

I guess what I’m saying is that I have a simple life, so pared down — HOW can I take away the coffee-before-practice ritual??

I believe I am actually negotiating to keep the pre-practice coffee. But with whom am I negotiating? Oh right, it’s all in my head.

I don’t know why it seems like such a big deal.

This morning, due perhaps to coffee-deprivation, ritual-deprivation, or the full moon, I had a strange practice. I’m still on my Tuesday and Thursday backbending prep and research pose kick, and today’s practice was all about stretching out my upper back and shoulders. I’ll admit that when I started practicing yoga, one of my biggest challenges was lifting my arms over my head. I know, it seems impossibly lame. But those years of lifting weights and climbing had really taken their toll.

I’m still not great at lifting my arms over my head. It’s actually a thrill that I can now touch my upper arms to my ears. A few years ago, that was just out of the realm of possibility. Imagine how Neanderthal I felt in a room full of flexy people, when the teacher said “Lift your arms,” and I was like, “Argh. Arms no go above head. And quit staring at my huge cranium and my monobrow.”

Results of today’s practice: I have a “stuck” spot in my left arm, right where lower deltoid and upper bicep meet. If I stretch my arms back and overhead long enough, the spot actually gets numb. Well, that’s a new one on me! No idea what it’s about.

According to Amazon, delivery of my copy of Vanda Scaravelli’s book, Awakening the Spine, is due this afternoon. And just in the nick of time: my spine definitely needs some awakening. As does that spot in my arm. I joke around about it, but I am really curious about the spine lately (no doubt due to the recent focus on backbending), and I’m looking forward to reading and thinking about it in some new ways.