donutszenmom.com

Gah! Seriously, I have always been pretty liberal regarding the “no onions, no garlic” rules — especially as regards garlic. It’s part of my heritage, after all. Last night, though, The Cop and I went to see “I Am Legend” (four thumbs up, BTW) and then out for Italian food. The croutons in the salad — garlicky. The garlic in the pasta — garlicky. The spices in the olive oil for your bread — garlicky. This morning on the mat: gahhhh! File that away with the “look out for margaritas the night before practice” rule.

Being a nerd, I made a note for myself to look at before urdhva dhanurasana. It read: “Lower psoas. And rotate hands.”

Check.

I skipped the blocks and went for awareness in the lower psoas muscles — which are STEEL, signifying SUCCESS at the gym… And I checked out my hands when I was up there, too. I do tend to rotate my hands the way Vanessa suggested, but what I found this morning is that I don’t pull the rotation all the way up into my shoulders. That may well be what’s making the stress/stuckness in my upper arms.

So a step forward, thanks to your comments.

I did want to remark on (0v0)‘s note that the UDs don’t seem to fatigue me. This is absolutely due to a combination of Annie’s order not to do more than 5, and my own “first pass” with all poses that I’m working on. First order of the day is always to get the breathing squared away. I know I’m a dork with the ear plugs, but listening to see if the breath is ragged in any places helps me understand how my energy is working. I try to deal with that before doing any detail work or mucking around with mechanics. You should have heard when I first started doing UD: it was all about huffing and puffing and straining and gasping. The thing that’s surprising is that you can actually do all of those things pretty quietly, and without really noticing anything more than that you feel anxious.

One of the more interesting things about yoga. Always revealing the very things I keep secret from myself…