Let's get cozy, shall we?

I'm happy for the Diver. Really.

So starting at 6 am this morning, there was a steady trickle of refugees showing up from The Other Shala, which shuttered it doors for good yesterday. Sad, indeed. Its presence will be sorely missed.

But I think we set a record of 19 students at the only remaining morning mysore class in the city.

It's great for the Diver. He gets more students who will benefit from his good teaching. I wasn't expecting any adjustments at all, what with all these newbies doing funky moves, but he was fixing wayward hand placements, wispy ujayi breathing and thunking jumpbacks for starters.

I did get a big squish in paschi. It felt great, like I was reaching a yard past my feet. But I selfishly wondered how much attention I'll get in the coming days.

Okay, so I'll practice agarigraha.

Required reading & listening for all astangis

Talk about a fierce pose.

I landed on Matthew Sweeney's website today (he's the one on the left). It's filled with fascinating insights and a very contemporary take on Ashtanga yoga. Purists might have think he is being heretical, but he has studied extensively in Mysore (he's rocking Advanced B currently) and he is respectful of the traditional approach while being clear and sensible about the challenges many students face today.

Here are a few abbreviated points that interested me which you can read further on his site and in the Musings section:
* He has developed five vinyasa sequences that emphasize different parts of the practice (Moon, Lion, Bound, Flying and Fifth) and offers alternatives to the standard series
* Astanga as we practice it today is about 35 years old
* Mysore instructors should have an active practice and at a minimum, should be doing full intermediate currently (or in the past)
* As a teacher and practitioner, he likes having an adjustment-free day once a week to help encourage practitioners to figure out the difficult poses themselves
* Self-practice is very important
* Regretting a missed practice is a form of ahimsa

The Yoga Peeps interview is also recommended listening for all ashtangis. It's a bit long and the interviewer is not very polished, but it's worth hearing. It's even provided new inspiration for my practice.

One of the hardest poses ever

I think it was one of my old, sadistic Iyengar teachers who said that savasana was the hardest pose EVAH.

I have to admit it is pretty difficult for me too, because I hover so closely between sleep and consciousness during the day anyway. And when I get to savasana after an exhausting practice, I just conk out.

At the end of this morning's practice I decided to go for it. I was so tired from the weekend of activities; I didn't even have a catch-up nap on Saturday to get me through the coming week. So after doing my half 2s, I pulled out my Hello Kitty lucky eye pillow (made by ever craft-y Laksmi) and immediately flaked out for 15 minutes. Just what I needed.

Lax came for her first mysore in a long time (Yay!). She even noticed that I took this unusual rest and mentioned that I snored. Not too loud, but loud enough. Yeah, I'm a snorer. Sorry! I apologize to everyone who's ever been in a class with me and had to endure it, past, present and future.

At least I didn't pop a boner like the dude in the pic. Photo credits go to Bindu Magazine.

Practice Notes: Revisiting Golden Oldies

Warning: Crim pose ahead.

Sunday's led class with the Diver was chill, beginning with a 1/2 hour of sitting. Thankfully, the rest of the class was just as groovy; it was low on lunges (that's cuz Lax, Pi'ikea and Carl weren't there. Missed ya guys!). We basically ran through most of the standing poses, then second up to ardha matsyendrasana. He threw a little nauli somewhere early on.

I have to say that I had one incredible adjustment that peeled my hips and back open like a sardine can. We were in one-legged downward dog with hips squared and one leg up, just like Elsie here with her awesome leg warmers. Then when we opened our hips and reached the raised leg even higher, the Diver came by, helped open my outer hip and rolled out my thigh, thereby creating a higher lift. Cool!

The second part of the pose involved bending the raised knee, which opened me up even more. This reminds me of a similar pose that a former non-ashtanga yoga instructor (the most difficult yoga class you'll ever take, guaranteed) called, "boy dog." But hey, I digress.

I had totally forgotten about this adjustment since the pose isn't in The Syllabus and I don't do it a lot. I suppose I could also do this against the wall as I'm working on my much-dreaded hamunasana, but today's assist was wonderful! I could actually relax into the pose and feel where it's supposed to go.

Shout out to my peeps in Lululand!

It was my first visit to AYV since they moved to their new digs in January. They've been a bit nomadic too, sort of like The Diver (see my previous post).

The space has two smallish rooms for practice and finishing poses. It also has a lot of natural light and nice, toasty heat! Cool vibe too. About 17 students cycled through this morning, doing mostly primary and some second.

The students here are pretty serious about their practice and generally follow The Method. We were even doing the opening chant in semi-monotone, which seemed a little unadorned compared with the groovy version we do on Sundays. And I used to dislike the groovy version. My driste, which is not good when I'm in an unfamiliar location, wandered all over the place. I did notice a fair number of Luon wearers, black Mandukas and only a few props. And when I'm here, I do follow the crowd and don't veer off doing crazy mods or "bonus" poses since that would likely raise an eyebrow or two. But I'm just as happy to skip poses like pavirtta utthita hasta padangusthasana, and go through the series. Today I did second right up to laghu vajrasana.

The lovely Karen was adjusting, whom I hadn't met before. There was also another guy (didn't recognize him either) helping her out. Sharon, who usually covered the Sunday class, has changed her schedule for a much deserved break. I was rather thankful that Karen and the other fellow doing adjustments didn't use brute force to crank my body.

All in all, a nice place to practice. They were also very kind to post flyers for The Diver's workshop.

Hey, if you guys have your new "enhanced" driver's licences or passports, please come down for some fun!

Name this pose to impress your friends.

I know everyone's been losing sleep over the Sanskrit name of the pose I've blogblabbing about, but it is called Agnistambhasana, according to the yoga fashion bible, Yoga Journal.

I don't think I've ever heard an instructor call out this pose by that name before. Usually people call it Fire Log Pose, Box, Square or as I think I heard the Diver murmur yesterday morning when I asked him, Hips on Fire. That's a good one. As far as I'm concerned, any name containing the word, "fire", describes this charming little pose rather aptly.

It's perfect for a winter's morning practice.

Do you believe?

Perhaps I was beating myself up too much over the handstand issue, or that after I purged all of my fears in my previous blog, things started to click for me. Thank you, gentle readers, for the kind support and validation.

This morning I got up to my navasana/handstand combo, and as I was getting ready to do the first one, I could feel The Diver's attention zeroing in on me as he was about to help someone across the room. So I made sure I was away from the wall, pressed down on the front palm mounds and went up. Hm, felt much different than usual. I even had a moment or two to RELAX into the handstand which helps a lot. Duh, when my body tenses up like a wood plank of course it's going to timber, but this time, I'm actually hanging out in the pose.

The sound of The Diver's feet comes padding towards me. "Exactly," he says. Then I did four more with my navasana and miracles of miracles, I didn't touch the wall on any of them.

I'm HEAL-YALLD!

Praise Jim and Tammy Faye. People That Love.

Adho mukha svanasana or the Hat and Ha of it all

Talk about frustrating. I can't tell you how many years I've been working on doing handstands away from the wall. I find them so elusive. The progress I make is so seemingly incremental. Some days are better than others. The Diver sees how close I am yet so far away from nailing this pose.
It's interesting to observe that this pose is a deal breaker for a lot of students. I see people take their bathroom break when the teacher says, "Let's go to the wall." A colleague at work who is a serious marathon runner expressed an interest in doing more yoga, but has bailed out on the teacher she likes because they've started to do lots of handstands.

I do like how The Diver introduces them to his students early on. Hee. It humbles you really fast.

I have to also say that in his mysore classes The Diver is relentlessly patient and encouraging to keep me and other folks working on them when most of the time, I just want to race through my 5 lame attempts very quickly when he's out of the room or while he's helping another student.

What I've learned about myself and handstands is this:

1) It doesn't come naturally to me. Apparently I have oodles of strength in my shoulders (so he says), but I have a mental block about possible falling and cracking open my head or knocking the wind out of myself when I flop down on my back. This is very rational fear though, don't you think?

2) There are many elements to this pose. The kick-up, the breathing, the balancing, the exit. Just to make things even harder, the Diver likes to make handstand part of a whole sequence: navasana, pull it up into adho mukha svanasana, hang there for an eternity or so, then slowly squeeze your body down into navasana again. Easy! Yah.

3) It's possible to think too much while trying to do it. Feel the pose! Do this! Don't do that! So much inner talk for my little brain to process. Usually thinking less or not thinking comes so easily for me, especially at work. All of a sudden my mind is now filled with terrifying thoughts.

So today I got a clue. The Diver has been trying to wean me off the wall, while I've been secretly inching my way back towards it. This morning, he moved me so far away from the wall, I knew that if it I went overboard, it wasn't going to help me much at all. Then he reminded me about my hands. Shift the weight, spread your fingers, work your hands. All of my weight is on the back part of my hand. Not stable at all. And when I feel that I'm going to lose it, my fingers go into a death grip and the fingertips go white. So he talks me through an similar pose that I know--bakasana. Shift your weight forward like you're almost going to plant your face into the floor.

Ahh, ok. Then I try handstand.

Ding.

I feel it. All this time, I've been hearing him say this repeatedly and I understood the theory of what he was saying. I thought I was doing it but I wasn't really. Now he's given me a new idea to work with. Press down on the front mounds of my palm. Now when I'm in downward dog and other similar poses, I notice how I'm doing the death grip all over the place. Need to rewire. But now at least, I have that awareness, which is very informative.