Dropback challenge, continued.

Yesterday my new attempt to do Iyengar-style dropbacks was not too successful. Managed 7, which was better than last time. But qualitatively speaking, they were totally unsatisfying, stiff, hard, and just icky. Tried it today again, and discovered that doing all the sun salutes beforehand (as oppose to lame-ass table pose warm-ups) helps a lot. Duh.
Still, nothing earth-shattering, just a little progress. Twice - 5 dropbacks at a time, then once - 3 dropbacks (13 in total). Needed rest in between the batches. Obvious lack of stamina, but it should improve as I continue practicing. I got a glimpse of what Grimmly was talking about - a sense of rhythm and meditative quality of the whole thing. Just a glimpse of what to look forward to, but enough for motivation.

Looking at my own dropbacks, I just discovered how much I bend my knees going both down and up. On the positive side - feet stay in pretty firm, just splay a little. This week I will concentrate on hangbacks and see if that helps with going down smoother.

On the other note, we just endured a pretty nice snow storm. It is very pretty outside! Need to go and dig out my car. It will be fun trying to find it - they all look like big white lumps. If only I remembered where I parked on Friday...

Happy Sunday!

Dropback challenge

Grimmly's post about Iyengar, comments about Patricia Walden and dropbacks prompted me to try dropbacks instead of whole practice today. I know, Saturday and a moon day, bad. An it did go not as well as I hoped for. After a warm up and some backbending preps I managed just 6 dropbacks in a row and then completely pooped out. I do not even have a video evidence of this, because my camera turned on its own (in total disgust, I think) and recorded only arms and a strained red face. But I do have a couple of clips of the backbend preps.

The first one - the dangers of home practice to our pets:




On the second - I can see that practicing kapotasana increased the flexibility of my hips, which improved my UD a little:




So this is today and two years ago:
The difference is really microscopic and mostly in the hips (knees are a little straighter), but oh well, I'll take it. Maybe upper back, too?

It is snowing out here. I hope this is the last of winter we see this season.
Happy weekend!

I am grateful...

Just a quick note to keep this blog alive.

Being busy is nothing new for any of us, but it feels like I have never been busier in my life. Well, last year at the same time, when I started teaching immunology for the first time, it felt close. This year the teaching is a little easier, since it is a second time around and I insisted on having fewer students. But the day-work stuff picked up both speed and volume tremendously. The lab I am working in is transitioning to a different institution, which means we need urgently to tie up loose ends and fulfill all our obligations to collaborators. There is so much to do that sometimes I can't even start in the morning, just trying to decide which problem to tackle first.

But I still practice yoga every single day (Thank you, Kaivalya!). I also made a pact with myself not to skip any poses during my practice (my favorite skipped ones - dropbacks, because "me tired...") - thank you, Grimmly! Being a part of a blogosphere not only gave me lots of new friends, both virtual and "real", but also taught new things and provided with amazing inspiration. Thank you, everyone! Ugh, it all sounds like I am saying goodbye, which I am not. Just needed to express my gratitude.

Anyway, I think I figured out how to start my work day, so I bid you all to have a wonderful day!

First week of the year.

So far so good. Yoga every day. Even twice on Sunday - mysore and a vinyasa class I teach. I made a list of poses for my home practice, mostly to clean-up poses I do not do well (such as sloppy jump-backs and throughs, lifting into Upavista konasana B, and so on); also kicks into handstand and samakonasana stretches. It is a little eclectic, but after sun salutations it seems to work OK. I also need to add at least 30 minutes to my night sleep, this part did not work yet.

Also on the agenda - keep the food logged into chronometer, do not go over 2000 cal - still good, too. At the moment 80% raw, 20% cooked; 100% vegetarian.

I love the energy of the new beginnings. New Year is my favorite holiday because of that. Only wish this energy could sustain a little longer than it normally does. Oh well, whatever. I will enjoy it while it lasts.

Things are picking up at work, keeping me really busy. My boss is leaving for another institutions, and most of the lab are going with her, including me, sometime within next 6 months. Which means we need to wrap up all the projects we can finish and publish, publish, publish. It is also time for my side job to kick-in - teaching immunology this semester. Thank God for my New Year jolt of energy, without it I would just die in anticipation of the time crunch. So far, though, a feeling of invincibility and unlimited power is hovering on the back of my mind, keeping my step light and me - smiling.

On unrelated note - I have this strange urge to see Avatar again. I liked the movie a lot, but did not expect the desire to see it again. Weird.

Have a great day, everyone!
:)

Last week of the year.

Back to the routine, thank God. Good practice today! Lifting from Kapotasana was effortless. The trick for me was to coordinate a precise moment of contracting abs and quads, in addition to a slight push with arm. It seems so strange now that the feat seemed impossible only a week ago. I love this about yoga!

How aerobic is Mysore practice?

Thank you so much for all of you who advised me on the lift from Kapo B. Something must have stuck in my subconscious brain, because I did it yesterday! Three times. Might have done it today, too, but David helped me, so I do not know. But it is funny how a pose seems completely impossible, until something clicks and it works. Just like magic...

I brought in a heart rate monitor today to practice. In one of his talks, David said that heart rate should not go above 60 during Ashtanga practice. Yeah, right. My resting heart rate is 65-75, so I am already not there. During the day - 80-110, depending if I am walking or sitting. So anyway, my results:

Sun Salutations increase to 126
Standing poses hold heart rate around 100, except for hasta padangustasana, utkatasana and both virabadrasanas - 126
Vinyasas between seated raises HR by 10 (from 95 to 105-110, approximately), forward bends decrease it back to 95-100
Starting from Marich C to kurmasana, HR does not go down from 125; supta kurmasana - 136
Blessed baddhakonasana brings it down again to 100, then it goes down to 90-somtheing, until, of course, setu bandhasana - 127
Pasasana - 130
HR does not go down at all during all second series backbends, and actually reaches 150 after kapotasana (wihich is 15 points more than lagu vajrasana)
UD and dropbacks are not quite as strenuous as I thought they were - HR up to 135
Finishing poses do not decrease HR substantially, but not raise it as well, except for utpluthee - 134
Savasana - 81

I know that my cardiovascular health is not very athletic, so this record might not be helpful at all to all of you, athletic people. But it was interesting to me that vinyasas are as strenuous as just walking (not that strenuous at all - but again, my jumpbacks suck). Sarvangasana and sirsasana are not restorative. I also expected a higher raise of the HR after twists. Kapotasana results are not suprising.

So if I calculate my aerobic target rate, it comes to 103 to 156 for my age. Which means that I keep my heart rate somewhere is the middle of this range practicing ashtanga. This makes me happy...

Kapotasana B woes.

So this is my Kapotasana. Honestly speaking, this is the first time I am seeing it myself, and it is not as flat as I thought it was. I do see all that re-gained weight though, sigh. Anyway, I need some advice. That pathetic attempt to an exit from Kapotasana B is my best attempt to date. What am I doing wrong? Where should I press, which muscles to engage and which to relax? Please help! :)

I like ashtanga again. I think.

Several massages, being cautious in my practice and just generally taking it easy made my aversion to all things ashtanga subside a little. I somewhat re-acquired the enthusiasm for practice, though I still can't manage more than a three day Mysore week.

So while I was away:

1) Attended Simon Park's workshops at Flow yoga. Super-nice person, fun and challenging flows, I got some progress going in my handstands. I was happy but a little surprised at my lack of stamina. I think that vinyasa classes that I teach are just as challenging, but then again, I teach them, not do them. Note to self - add some cardio, Saturdays perhaps?

2) Kapotasana is a little better. My back is no longer shocked after it, and backbends are just fine. I would say that UD became better because of kapotasana. But I still can't stand up from kapotasana B. David thinks it is purely psychological (it took me forever to learn to stand up from UD). But I think it is my alleged lack of psoas minor. A girl can blame her ashtanga problems on anatomical deficiencies, right? It is a basic human right.

3) Had an energy correcting session with a shaman-in-training. Do not ask.

4) Am excited but also dreading upcoming immunology teaching starting this January.

5) Nearly all the weight that I lost with such difficulty this year came back. Makes me sad. Can't bind supta kurmasana on my own. Can't bind wrist in Mari C, D and pasasana. Somebody, please slap me.

I am going to read your blogs now. Ciao!

Kapotasana blues

I have been feeling down for a while now. It is mostly ashtanga funk, the rest of my life is more or less OK. The name of this misery - well, kapotasana, of course. I am so sad about the whole thing, I did not want to write, read or even think about ashtanga lately. Dreading the pose poisoned my joy of practice completely and making myself to go to Mysore became an exercise in willpower. In addition, I hurt myself again.

It all started with waking up with a crick in the neck. Nothing new, happens when I go to bed too tired and not move enough in sleep. I went to practice, and it made it worse. Now this is a surprise, because normally yoga always helped in these situations. But I never practiced kapotasana before, and this was the pose that made a difference for the worse. Pain moved from my neck and settled in the upper back, between shoulder blades. It was so bad, pushing a door open with one hand cause sharp pain, leaving me gasping for air for a moment. It was painful to take full inhalations, sit, stand, lie down. Whew. Went to get a massage with Keith. He discovered a string of brand-new knots between my shoulder blades on both sides. The massage itself was painful, but I felt much better afterwards. So good that I practiced on my own at home, carefully and gently, but including some backbends. This morning - the pain is back, not as bad as it was, but bad enough to keep me seated like I just swallowed a stick.

I googled the upper back pain and it seems that the injury to that area is extremely rare. But again, they are talking about normal people, not ones who try to stick their noses between the feet bending backward.

So it has been nearly a week I am on and off in pain. If I were smart, I would go to see a doctor. But then I think that he would tell me just to stop doing what I am doing and everything will be fine. I can't imaging any disk problems in the chest area, because the column just does not bend backwardly there. It doesn't. There are spikes on the vertebrae that prevent that bending. On the other hand, something obviously irritated the outgoing nerves to make the rhomboid muscles bulge up. Movement of the ribs? I noticed before that really good backbenders have their ribcage sticking up when in a deep backbend, so I was trying to emulate the movement, so this is a possibility. I am not sure, though, if there is a proximity of the ribs and the nerves that exit the spinal cord. Anyway, if it is not vertebrae and the disks, then it can't be anything serious, right? Right?

New week.

Good practice Sunday, but could not wake up today at all for Mysore. I teach a very intense vinyasa class Sunday evenings, so probably it is too much yoga for one day. No matter, tomorrow is another good day for practice.

Not a lot to report, my life is as boring as ever. Little highlights:

- I assembled the bookshelves all by myself - so proud. Especially because it was said in the instructions - two people required. One big mistake - not a good idea to try to fit boards by slapping them with your hands. I did it successfully, but today I am sporting an enourmous bruise on my hand, on the base of the thumb. Downdog is a little painful.

- Tried standing up from the "wide UD" from Liz's challenge. Could not do it. Realised that can stand up from only not too wide and not too narrow UDs. Not a very good stander-upper, as it seems. Need to work on it.

- Still did not get to watch Kino's DVD - just need a good solid junk of time. Perhaps the veteran's day?

- Back on the vagon with CRON and raw eating. Feel better as a result.

OK, back to work. I hope everyone has a really nice Monday evening!