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Yesterday I started taking some Zyflamend supplements to see if they’d be useful for reducing inflammation & soreness. I didn’t notice much of anything yesterday, aside from a sketchy tummy last night, but today at practice I felt like I was going to burst into flames.

Turmeric, anyone?

As far as soreness goes, I am in good shape. One thing I make note of during practice is the way my lower back feels when I vinyasa out of dhanurasana, parsva dhanurasana, and ustrasana. It’s one of my superstitions: I am very happy if there is no soreness in those down dogs, and I believe I’ll have an easy kapotasana. Now, the weird thing about this superstition is that I have often had soreness and then gone on to have a painless kapotasana — in fact, painless kapotasanas (I’m talking about the lower back here) are the norm. Still, I love when all those down dogs are painless. And this makes me wonder: do other people sometimes feel sore in the vinyasas between dhanurasana through ustrasana?

Kapotasana: Muscle Man can easily guide me to my toes in kapotasana these days. I get the little crease between toes and soles and feel happy. Well, except for the fact that my forearms aren’t on the floor. Too much tension between my shoulderblades. That’s the weak link in kapo for me. Muscle Man expects me to grab my toes and hang on, so he can let go of my hands and push down on my elbows. But as soon as he lets go of my hands, they slip off my toes. I got this idea that I needed to curl my toes up so I’d have something to hang onto, but I was too busy pushing the tops of my toes into the floor. Plus, I couldn’t figure out which way was up and which down anyhow. Which way should I curl my toes to make them go UP? I wondered. Why am I even thinking something like this?!? Finally he brought my hands to my toes and then stood on my hands. Then he pushed my elbows down. Nice work, MM! Sorry I couldn’t be any help.

Acceptance. I am working with acceptance. 1) My shoulder is hinky — specifically, the right collarbone has a compression issue. As in, it doesn’t want to be compressed right now.

What that means is I can do my eka padas, and the left side of dwi pada, but the second side isn’t happening without significant teacher-intervention. The compression thing happened when I had dwi pada halfway there, then tried to wriggle my shoulder under the right leg. Using an internally rotated shoulder to press hard against the weight of two legs folded up behind your back is, apparently, not the best idea. Still, I suspect I’d do it the same way, given the same situation. So for a little while, I’m gonna do eka pada and skip the dwi, unless MM wants to make me do it help me out with it.

More acceptance: I’d gotten to a point with primary where I felt at least minimally competent. I could do a consistent practice with some super-duper days and some eh, not so great days. But not much variability between those two possibilities. Even a bad day wasn’t too terribly bad. Now, though, it’s a total crapshoot. I’m good through suryas and standing — all even drishti and still mind. Once I hit the intermediate poses, though, it can be like driving off a superhighway onto a dirt road bump! bump! bump! Some days are great, some are like a bad climb, where you drag yourself up using your fingernails and elbows and forearms and knees and even the insides of your ankles (all of which get skinned to hell in the process) ’cause there’s no other option than to crawl up that rock.

Today, as I rolled around on my back with my left leg behind my head and the right one flapping in the breeze, I thought: God, it’s come to this.