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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. )

No, I don’t mean my feet are made of wood. Though if they were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. A few days ago I woke with sore feet. Like the toes and arches have been stretched out.

Figured out the mysterious affliction pretty quickly. It’s from “timbering” out of the seven headstands this past week. This is just the kind of pain the resolves itself with continued practice, so I’m not worried. Just curious that I’ve never seen it mentioned before. Perhaps I have unusually sensitive feet?

Saturday is primary day around here, so I went to led class. Nice way to end the Ashtanga week. Muscle Man is off doing a workshop this weekend, so we had a sub. Not too many Ashtanga teachers around these parts — she managed well enough, but forgot a few things here and there, but was very charming, so all was well.

It’s been weeks and weeks of helping My Gift locate, secure, move into, and decorate her apartment, but she’s happily ensconced and I have a whole weekend off! Well, I do have to work on a white paper on talent management. But other than that writing and an appointment with Candice tomorrow, my time is unstructured. Just the way I like it!