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Second at home is nice, because I can hear myself clearly. The energy of the shala rocks, of course, but it also sucks some of my internal attention away. At the very least, I know MM is keeping an occasional eye on me, and that makes the whole thing a bit of a performance.

I read once that teachers help keep the student off the path of least resistance. This makes perfect sense to me — I tend to overwork, but I certainly would never dream of hanging out in kapo for the 20-25 breaths that I usually end up hanging out in kapo when MM is running the show.

I’ve been using my home practices to explore the “shape” of the series, more than to focus hard on the specifics of poses. It’s a nice compromise.

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The 7 headstands are different at home, too. I did all of the headstands, but skipped the timbers. If I get far up enough on my mat to timber without cracking my feet on the floor, it means that any crash would involve rolling off onto the (hard!) stony tile. No, thanks.

Muka hasta sirsasana C — up and down, no problem. Sigh. I know this is because I was in my own little room & in my own little world. Why is it so much easier when no one else is around??

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LBH poses were meh, but hey, practicing lame versions of poses is better than no practice at all. It’s clear to me that LBH poses are where my psychological resistance lies. I feel scared doing them on my own. Same kind of anxiety I used to get in the bhujapidasana –> supta kurmasana sequence.

Poses after LBH, though, are all fun, fun, fun!

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It’s nice to document stuff, and here’s why. I found an urdhva dhanurasana picture from August of last year. So here’s 2008 and 2009. Yes, I need to push into my legs more, but my shoulders are a little tweaky, so I’m going easy. And the 2009 image is pixelated, ’cause I resized it to make it more similar to the 2008 picture. Still, there’s improvement. Except for my feeties. They still misbehave.

(All is coming. If I work at it every day. For a really long time. )