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Run out of office in the late afternoon and drive to class, cursing the traffic and feeling stressed about time. Ah, so this is what people feel like, going to yoga class. No driving through the quiet morning darkness, singing Sanskrit chants and enjoying the new day.

Hot yoga was fine. A not-Bikram sequence. Complete with no Bikram-style yelling pep talks about “Pull! Pull! Pull!” No, in fact, the instructor talked in vinyasa voice. Which is better, but still pretty sketchy.

I got totally freaked out by all the directions at one point and wanted to scream, “Stop telling me what to DO!”

Self-practice much?

The practice was okay. The heat a bit much. Made me feel kind of shaky and distracted. No freaking way I can do UHP looking at my reflection in a mirror. I pratyahara-ed as hard as I could, but no go.

Discovered that Evian tastes sweet in a hot yoga room. I’m no Evian fan to begin with, but it’s all that was in the pantry this morning — the sweet water discovery was deeply unpleasant. I’ll take my water bitter, thanks.

Muscle cramps. In my calves. Must eat salt later (this is good news, I LOVE salt and any excuse to consume it).

Backbends. Hey! The intermediate work is “working”! My salabasana and dhanurasana look great! Uh oh, why am I thinking this? Oh, I know, it’s because I am staring at myself in a mirror.

And duh, suddenly I realize that my back woes started when I backed off the intermediate backbends and threw myself headlong into the dropbacks. Hmmmm?

Baddha konasana. I don’t think so. It’s a total NO GO. Not only can I not bend forward, I have a screaming piriformis. Huh? I’ve been here for an hour, but I’m not open enough to do baddha konasana in any form? Oh wait, it’s because I have done pretty much ZERO forward bends.

I miss Ashtanga! I miss bending forward!

Criminal status revoked.

***

Driving home, I plot. To no avail. I have a bunch of variables, but no good design solution. Perhaps I my overheated core and dehydrated brain are not up for creative thinking.

Here’s the deal, though: My T12 hurts in backbends. I suspect I need to rehab — with the early intermediate backbends.

My piriformis is tweaked. Keep doing baddha konasana, or back off for a bit?

Ideally, I’d do a nice, slow, mindful primary plus some-of-intermediate practice, with a lengthy, rejuvenating closing sequence. But the reality is: I have a shorter amount of time for practice, due to the hours Muscle Man and The Archangel keep at Starbucks of Yoga. So I jettisoned intermediate backbends and just did primary and lots of urdhva dhanurasana and assisted dropbacks.

But maybe, just maybe, the deeper dropback backbending has to be supported by the intermediate backbends? Did I jettison an important support beam in the structure?

How to compress primary, intermediate through ustrasana, UD, dropbacks and closing into an hour? Is that even possible? If someone is actually managing that, I’d like to hear about it.

Otherwise the options seem to be to do a truncated practice of some sort, or to ditch the shala and do lengthy practices at home. “Slower progress without a teacher!” “Do the whole practice!” “Listen to your teacher!” “Listen to your body.”

*sigh*

Mucho chitta vrttis.