I’m growing attached to The Cop as my teacher. He’s got a great kapo assist and a great dwi pada assist. Sensitive and attentive. “Spread your fingers more,” he suggested for my kapo B this morning. Good call!
We’re supposed to go to Tucson for yoga vacation Oct 6-19. There is some talk about my needing to do some unexpected business travel, though, which might change our plans. Did I mention I’ve been exhausted and dying to schedule some vacation since August? It got pushed to September, at which point three business trips got scheduled. So vacay moved to October. Now there may be more travel. On the one hand, I’m tired and need a vacay! On the other, it’s international travel to a place I’ve never been. We’ll see what happens….
While i was in Chicago, Waylon tore his dog equivalent of an ACL. He’s scheduled for surgery tomorrow morning. A weird procedure called TPLO. Involves planing the bone and adding a metal plate. There’s a simpler surgery we could’ve opted for, but the surgeon recommended TPLO ’cause of his size and weight. The procedure essentially solves for the problem by making the ligament unnecessary.
One last practice note: my right knee has been a little hinky in eka and dwi pada sirsasana (’cause the hip is tight). The pain and fear of injury were causing me to get pretty anxious about these postures. This morning, as I grabbed my right foot to get into eka pada, I heard my inner monolog chanting, “it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” as I went. I kind of laughed at myself, but I also noted that getting into the pose was easy and pain-free.
Posted in Uncategorized on 09/15/2010 05:56 am by karen
Personal Learning Environments, Networks & Education. PLENK2010 is a MOOC (massive open online course) which started on Monday. Participants (~1000 nerds people) set up their blogs and Twitter feeds and what-have-you, then read about and write about and discuss personal learning environments.
Posted in ashtanga yoga on 09/14/2010 07:41 pm by karen
The Cop’s work schedule has changed, which is great, because I get to see him a lot more. I’m kinda silly giddy with how happy I am about this. Another nice aspect of the change is that I get more kapo and dwi pada assists!
The elbows-in-and-down adjustment in kapotasana is crazy powerful. And the dwi pada assist much appreciated. Kinda worth the charge of admission to a shala. Generally speaking, I feel like I can sort out the things I need to work on in practice, but I can’t seem to solve for those two adjustments. Luckily The Cop is here to help out.
I laughed out loud when I looked at this and saw how crazy my shoulders are. Some day my elbows will reach the floor. But you know, for as insanely tight as my shoulders are now, they are a billion times more flexible than when I started. And it’s too dark to really see in the vid, but I am managing to touch my feet before my head touches the floor, which is bouncy and extremely entertaining. (If anyone wants to opine on ways to get my elbows to the floor, go for it!)
But that’s not the fun part. The fun part is that after three years of kapo pain and anxiety, this posture now feels delightful and I actually look forward to doing it! It actually makes me happy! But that kind of begs the question, when you look at it from the perspective of a normal person: why in the world would you do something that hurt and was scary every single day (except Fridays and Saturdays and moon days!) for three years?
Then I thought of Dogen: To study the way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.
And then I thought of what Sharath says in Guruji: It is a way of worshipping God.
Oh, and this morning’s practice was topped off with a terrific dwi pada sirsasana adjustment by The Cop. He’s getting really good at it!
