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Forrest Yoga feel like exercise.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

MM has Mysore class on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Led primary on Saturdays. Sunday is my day off. Tuesday and Thursday I do home practice.

Today I decided to try Ana Forrest’s UNRAVELLING THE MYSTERIES OF NECK, SHOULDERS AND HIPS. I do have a very mysterious neck.

Anyhow, I did it because I take suggestions from people on the internet (thanks, Elizabeth!). That’s a little bit of a joke. Still, I did some reading on AF last night and indulged in some nostalgia for my muscles.

Back in the 90s and 00s, I was all about cultivating my muscles. How I loved them. Giving up lifting and turning to an all yoga all the time practice was, at least in the beginning, a lesson in letting things go. And by things I mean hard muscles.

So I let them (sometimes grudgingly) go. In return, a lot of tangles and tensions of muscle and tendon and ligament (and breath!) unravelled. It felt like I was coming apart, in a way, and I really like(d) that feeling.

I am in a weird place now, though. I need more unravelling for kapotasana and LBH, but I also need to recultivate some strength for the stand-ups and tics.

Been letting everything go, but maybe need to pull some of it back in. Especially around the abs.

Okay, so I did an AF practice this morning and was happy to do lots of inversions, and irritated to do (what seemed like) really long holds. The fun of something new. The annoyance of something strange. Good times.

I am onto something here about rebuilding some strength. Ideally, a less tense kind of strength. I’ll play with it on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a month. And we’ll see what happens.