Thursday, April 17, 2008

Damn you, UD!

David is back. Good practice, nothing earth-shattering, but that is what I need - back to the routine, drawing pleasure from each pose of each practice. I think now is one of those times when I feel that nothing is hurting (well, except for the knees a little, but I am skipping Marichi D in which I feel the pain). Such joy! The only thing that clouds my euphoria is that I completely lost my tiny ability of standing up from UD. Not sure what happened, but I can't do it. What if I never learn? I imagine myself being 80, slowly and shakily moving my frail carcass through the primary, reaching UD, failing to stand up, shaking my wrinkled fist into the air "Damn you, Urdhva Dhanurasana" and dropping dead. And the tombstone with " She tried, but failed". Ugh, I'd better start practicing it at home again :)

I am meeting with Cranky today! I am so excited!


I took this picture from a Russian forum. Unfortunately, I do not know who the author is.




19 comments:

Elaina said...

What if you are exactly 30? :)

Cute post!

alfia said...

Hi, Elaina!

Exactly 30 means that you have another 50 or so years to prevent the pitiful end of life I just envisioned :D

Thank you!

Boodiba said...

Oh you are funny today :)

I think it's something that comes & goes at the beginning, the standing from Urdhva D...

alfia said...

Hi, Linda!

I hope it is true and things will change. Weird, though. One day you can do something, the other - like it never happened. Did I dream the whole thing?

Boodiba said...

Nope. It's just a bit tricky at the beginning.

crankyhausfrau said...

i second Linda about the UD. i there are a lot of poses like this, where they might wax and wane. especially toward the end of the week when your energy is winding down.

Boodiba said...

Ya it's hard not to get your knickers all in a twist about it, but you've gotta remember, if you did it once, you can do it again.

alfia said...

Thank you, Tova; Thank you, Linda!

I am at peace with that, truly. I just feel a little delinquent not being able to repeat something that was done once.

Linda, when I do the military style push-ups, my elbow hurts a little. Do you think I overdid it or something? I feel a little whimpy, but I would hate to damage something and not being able to do yoga because of that. Did you ever have a pain in your pushups?

Boodiba said...

Yes. I used to regularly tear my right tricep actually. VOR called me "Practices Til Arm Bleeds", my Indian name. It happened when I did my 90 push-up sequence twice over a weekend and then went to led Primary on a Monday night.

Be careful! I never am, but I wouldn't advise everyone else to behave in the same way.

alfia said...

Ouch! Thank you, Linda, I think I will back off a little. My feeling is that the warranty on my body expired, I better be gentle with it!
Mwah!

Boodiba said...

I'm an extremist. I can't seem to help it. I used to strap myself up in virasana and throw 60lbs of weights on top of myself. This was at the gym. People would walk by & roll their eyes.

alfia said...

I used to be a maximalist, too. Paradoxically, when I started Astanga and became plagued by injuries, my attitude changed. But I remember I would bring my leg up and prop it against the wall to stretch hamstrings and stay there, reading a book for a long time. I used weights, too! In baddhakonasana - to bring my knees down. Good times... :)

Boodiba said...

Astanga cured me of a lot of the over achieving. I used to try to find ways to work extra hard at the gym because I couldn't seem to exhaust myself / find my limits, my "edges". Astanga? No problem. I was really injured the first year and a half. Sorting out a lot of imbalances. I've been at Mysore style for only about 3.5 years. Now it's all good times for the most part.

I wonder what kept me going before. Not sure.

alfia said...

I haven't realized you have been doing Ashtange for only 3.5 years. That is very, very impressive!

alfia said...

Oh, Elaina:

It took me the whole day until I realized what were you asking about. The power if my intellect is staggering, but unfortunately, a bit slow. :D

Boodiba said...

I've been doing Mysore style for about 3.5 years, but I was doing led Primary for about 4 years before that, usually twice a week but sometimes three times, at Crunch. A gym.

alfia said...

Did you have to dampen my Awe?!
:D

Boodiba said...

Oh don't get me wrong. It's not that I'm not proud of myself. I never thought I'd even finish 2nd series. I used to look at the people starting 2nd right after standing in pure wonder. And all the stuff I did at the gym made me strong enough to jump into 3rd, once I'd developed enough flexibility. But it's not like it happened overnight. The four years of primary at the gym was like prep work.

Some people who are flexible get to 3rd without ever being able to clear their jump backs, whereas I learned that in my first year of primary. I was also never impatient to move on, cause I was at a gym and primary was all I knew and it wasn't like I wasn't getting enough exercise.

Arturo said...

Hi Alfia
That is very funny, thank you. I feel, though, that Wednesday is hump day - the busiest in my type of work, so my bell curve is kind of in between the illustrations, where the proudest look is in the middle.

The whole post was very funny. I worry, or may I don't worry about UD, but I face the same challenge.

cheers,
Arturo

 

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