That was such a great week of Mysore practice with David Keil. I love my shala, but boy it is so nice to have all this attention in a room with 10 people in it. All the adjustments made full sense to me and I know what to work on now. I feel more confident in Kapotasana (though far from actually understanding it fully). Moreover, I had a "preview" of supta vajrasana - seems like a doable pose. I am still sore all over my body, though in a nice way, and feel like a massage would be a good treat for me.
On a completely different note. The last couple of weeks I noticed that I have a tremendous difficulty of concentrating. Always suspected that I might have a subclinical level of ADD, but this time it became so pronounced, I actually started considering seeing a doctor and beggging for meds. When I mentioned this to my boss after a day of futile struggle, she remembered reading a book, called "The edge effect", which was talking about tyrosine, serotonine and other neurotransmitters and how they affect the personality. I did not read this book, but there was a light bulb lighting up in my head. I remembered that in one of his lectures, our ayurveda teacher Brendan Freely said that he abandoned raw vegeterian eating because it made him "too flighty" and attributed this to increase in vata imbalance. I have not been eating any dairy the whole last month, so there was no uptake of any kind of animal protein in my diet at all. So probably I am low on tyrosine, and, as a result - low on dopamine and catecholamines. Which is reflected in difficulty to concentrate practically on anything (including writing this blog). I should know these things, being a neuroscientist and all. Anyway, this is a theory, which need proving. So for now, I will take some tyrosine supplements and see if my ability to work using my head improves at all, and meanwhile research raw foods rich in tyrosine and phenylalanine. Let me tell you, this raw vegan diet, with all its healthful benefits, is a lot of work. But I still like it. :)
On a completely different note. The last couple of weeks I noticed that I have a tremendous difficulty of concentrating. Always suspected that I might have a subclinical level of ADD, but this time it became so pronounced, I actually started considering seeing a doctor and beggging for meds. When I mentioned this to my boss after a day of futile struggle, she remembered reading a book, called "The edge effect", which was talking about tyrosine, serotonine and other neurotransmitters and how they affect the personality. I did not read this book, but there was a light bulb lighting up in my head. I remembered that in one of his lectures, our ayurveda teacher Brendan Freely said that he abandoned raw vegeterian eating because it made him "too flighty" and attributed this to increase in vata imbalance. I have not been eating any dairy the whole last month, so there was no uptake of any kind of animal protein in my diet at all. So probably I am low on tyrosine, and, as a result - low on dopamine and catecholamines. Which is reflected in difficulty to concentrate practically on anything (including writing this blog). I should know these things, being a neuroscientist and all. Anyway, this is a theory, which need proving. So for now, I will take some tyrosine supplements and see if my ability to work using my head improves at all, and meanwhile research raw foods rich in tyrosine and phenylalanine. Let me tell you, this raw vegan diet, with all its healthful benefits, is a lot of work. But I still like it. :)