Simha Krama: Lion Sequence.

Today, "experiment day" in the practice week, I did the Lion Sequence from MS's book.

I will spare details (because you should buy your own copy) but it is very backbendy and very sacrum-centered. MS said that he sometimes calls it "the sacrum sequence" and he told me, specifically, during the Minnesota workshop, that one student referred to it as "the Kapotasana sequence."

It develops, in Ashtanga-terms, probably both Kapo and Eka Pada Sirsasana.

The opening Chandra Namaskara is TOTALLY DELICIOUS. The various lunge sequences are powerful and fun. There is a whole shoulder flexibility sequence, in about eight different parts. I used a garden hose as a strap (what, you don't practice outside when it's 84 and beauty itself out there?) and it worked fantastically.

There are Ustrasana variations you absolutely WILL NOT BELIEVE. I pulled them all and some of them gave me SERIOUS "nadi shodana" hangover, a few breaths being necessary to really INTEGRATE the pose.

For the record: Half-lotus Krounchasana (heron pose) is freakin' HARD to do.

There were many new things, which I could do, and which I enjoyed. There were some new things I cannot CLOSE to do, and those were also fun. Great energy, great practice; giant, powerful vinyasa. Lunges, lotus variations, backbends, a fingertip Kapo come-up exercise (which both Karen and I received from MS).

I left out the inversions and closing twists, and the leg-behind-head developers (well, I tried one, but that wasn't what I was after) and MS says that one should pick and choose the sequences.

After the final backbending sequence, where I did pull myself up from fingertip Kapo dropback (yay!), I did three wheels and two half-bends, and also two wall dropbacks (wallbacks), and then two heels-up dropbacks on the mat, and I hit them BOTH, arms straight, head nowhere near the mat.

Raising the heels: in a wheel, this reduces the strain in the hip flexors and makes it easier (i.e., cheating) to press up. In dropping back, this again, eases the stretch on the hip flexors and allows the yogin to drop back without the threat of table-topping and thus landing on the head. It is, technically, a cheat, but right now, it works. MS had said to me, "I don't know that you can teach yourself this, but try this out" on the final Mysore day. I can; I have, taught myself this.

Standing up from a backbend is a mess; it has not come. The tendency, once I tip-toe a dropback, is to REMAIN tip-toed, and that simply DOES NOT WORK for standing up. Must master the foot-flat, foot-heavy, hips FORWARD motion. No matter.

I dropped back twice, and did not die. This is essential learning. Not dying must come first; control and neatness and ease come later.

Then I did a standard closing. My partner noted that, as I came into the house, I was rather unable to repress a grin. Good sequence?

As I've put in blog comments elsewhere: yes. The Simha Krama RULES.

Bits of wisdom during practice.

The practice was a Primary that I didn't want to do, so I took Swenson's advice.

"Do your practice a breath at a time."

I didn't crank any poses: shin in Triangle, no chin-to-shin in ANY forward bends. And so on.

Just before backbends, this showed up:

"It is not necessary to always be the hardest, craziest, baddest thing in the room."

The dialogue/polylogue in my head was more complicated than what I'm going to write, but here's, essentially, what it was all about:

"The pain catches up to us if we don't fend it off, scale the mountain, etc."

"No, that's an illusion. The pain is long ago and past. It sits. As Vonnegut said about his father's rifles: they rust."

"I'm not comfortable with that. Panic. Sadness. Breakdown. Give it back."

"Matthew said, during the week, that 'Yoga is whatever you're experiencing right now.'"

"I once read a bit on a blog about the path to backbending being, essentially, self-acceptance and affirmation, no matter how much it sucks to do that."

"Per another blog, Bhakti has a dark side. It is not just all about goodness and light."

***************************************

I didn't have to crank every forward bend to have a happy Kurmasana; it simply came when called.

I jumped back to knees, every time, to save the wrists, and it didn't in any fashion I can see, make my practice 'deficient.'

I did two bent-arm wheels, waited it out a bit, and did 3 bigger ones. What exactly do I need Kapotasana FOR, again?

Half-bending has retreated very appreciably since last week. 'Yoga is whatever you are experiencing right now.'

I am making myself commit a breath-lengthening pranayama post-asana. Just to get inhale/exhale each to a comfortable 10-12 count. Nothing too specific or fancy yet.

Stilling the modifications: for the record, a 'modification of the mind' might not be something you just casually PUT down one day. It can mean putting down your sense of yourself. It can be, really, pretty freakin' terrifying.

Wish List for the Future.

As expected, the return to Indianapolis from all that yoga in the Twin Cities has not been emotionally easy; it's NEVER emotionally easy to return here from ANYWHERE.

Here, universe, are the things I would like. Feel free to drop them, or ways that I can get to them:

1) I want an Ashtanga community. Doesn't have to be Mysore and certified and all that, but I want a community. Examples: Columbus, OH. Minneapolis. Virtually anywhere, it seems, in California. Portland, OR. Raleigh-Durham. Other places.

2) The tenure-track gig. Enough, already, with the adjunct-scrapping-to-pay-loans game. I GET IT. Chop wood, carry water, I get it, I get it, I get it. This year, I want it to pay off. Interviews in San Francisco at MLA. Spring offers. THIS YEAR.

3) A lefty-flavored place in which to live, with a scene. Here's specifically what I mean by that: life on the streets. Less (not an absence of, but less) oppressive poverty and undereducation and desperation than what I see now. Not necessarily the kind of "bubble of escape from the real world" that is all college towns. Examples that I have actually seen with my own eyes: San Francisco/Marin, Minneapolis, Seattle, Austin, even Albuquerque. Burlington, Vermont. Northampton, MA and environs. Chapel Hill and environs. Even Denver, Colorado. (The only reason I'm not adding places like Boston and NYC here is because they seem prohibitively expensive, not that some of these in my list, aren't, of course).

4) A more concrete link to the local climbing gym (did you think I'd leave this out?). Not just occasional setting, but a real live belonging. Showing people the knots, setting, front counter, climbing team, all that stuff.

5) This partner, these cats; move all of my adoreds, here, to there.

In short, then, I only want two things:

1) Community, humanity, tribe, belonging.
2) Teaching, living, head well above capitalist waters.

Minnesota: Thursday and then back to Indy

This will be the end of my written journal, which is in a way too bad, since I seem to have greater "immediacy" when writing than I do when typing. It's fine. Here we go.

"Yesterday afternoon (ED: by which I mean Wednesday) Dan's buddies Neil and Mark came over and we took Koan (who, again, is six) outside, so as not to disturb Dan's interview with uptight catsitters (ED: the cast of characters is this: Dan is the father of the house where I stayed; Koan is his son; Jess, who is the person I'd actually MET when I arranged this MN stay, was in Mexico for the week, so it was the three guys getting to know each other all week, and it was really pretty cool). Soon we were embroiled in fierce watergun and pool-noodle combat, and we were all soaked. It was good fun.

"I crashed early, if pre-10pm is early, and slept a solid 8 hours; the alarm woke me up. A quick dashing around and then I was off to the studio, arriving at 5:35. Balance was largely good in Utthita Hasta but I noticed clear tiredness in vinyasa and snaggy, achey hip flexors by the Maris. Navasana, where I tried to pull up and back, was an exhaustion festival. Still, quite good Bhuja, fine Kurmasana, deep Baddha K. I REALLY wanted no more, after Setu Bandhasana. Urdhva Mukha Paschimo took me something silly like SEVEN rollups to get, today. Tired! Sore!

"I gave up on left-side Pasasana, but right-side was easy. Krounchasana was tired; Shalabhasana not. Bhekasana was super shallow; after Dhanurasana, Matthew had me do Bhekasana again and got me into a BIG arch; knees apart is FINE in that pose. I did Dhanurasana again, and better, and then the Parsvas, tired Ustrasana, and a Laghu, which MS had me repeat: put hands a LITTLE HIGHER on the calves, to try to get the arms straighter (ED: my arms are only straight if my hands are tucked BEHIND my KNEES; I'm that kind of lanky; it proved to be enough if my wrists were turned outside the calves, and the elbows off the floor). I made it up to kneeling twice, but wow, tiring! I did a fingertip Kapo dropback, and came up easy, then did another one. Then I tried the full pose and got TOTALLY stuck, wedged on the floor, and my front body was WAY too beat for the come-up. Oh well! But Matthew then was suddenly there, 'walking in,' and so be it! I REALLY didn't want to, but I did, got stuck, got dragged to toes, and even a little higher (ED: by which I mean, about a half inch higher up the foot). Five breaths, elbows not down, assisted come up.

"The pose BROKE something in my resistance today: full minutes of ragged breathing, quiet laughter, emotional energy cascading down, waterfalling. (ED: this is, effectively, a crying reaction, with no tears; I've put myself in it before, and I recognized it) Backbends with this going on were serious effort, and there was a long, slow burn in the hip flexors and quads. Three wheels total; I just positively, certainly could NOT get up for a fourth one. I was still in the game, but energy was definitely scraping the bottom of the barrel.

"I did a few shallow half-bends (because there was no wall room) and got instant warnings from the low back and hip flexors: Fear! Exhaustion! Aching! Ye GODS is that sore! So I was, again, ready to cash in my dropback practice. My front body had gone 12 rounds with Ashtanga yoga and was about to get the technical knock-out. On cue, of course, Matthew was there, 'four times back.' I said, 'it's intense sensation day.' He nodded and it was on. 'Inhale.' SLOW back. CONTROL. Lean, balance, hips go FORWARD, NOW slowly extend arms. HANG. THEN drop. Four of those. I noticed, for maybe the first time ever, that on standing up, even MY feet turn out. WTF??? My feet NEVER turn out! They seemed to do it themselves, so I pulled them back in. Rock, 123, 3rd time up.

"Then MS had me do this: hips forward, ARCH, SLOW, extend arms, HOLD. Come up (UP!!!) on TOES, and see about BALANCING. THEN back. Two of those. We wound up doing three: once I kerplunked back (but to hands, not head, which technically makes it my most successful dropback EVER), once I kerplunked forward (to standing; then again, back, the third time). The motion possible there is DRASTIC, but fun! I've never felt like a stereotypical 'flexy backbender' but this move sure took me to slinkytown, I'll tell you that. Then a nice, solid closing. Ahhh."

The afternoon backbend adjustment workshop was not exclusively backbends: we did late Primary, including backbends, shoulderstand, and the rest of closing, including headstand (which we'd in part done before), then we quick-recouped the seven "core" adjustments (which you can find on Matthew's site) and did a totally delicious three-person Shiatsu-style two-on-one massage. Great stuff. Then everyone had to go: Matthew had to get to North Carolina, I had to get to Chicago, and various people even packed up early. There was no time for depression.

I hauled through six hours of Wisconsin with sunny ease. But Illinois has apparently put EVERY highway in the whole damn state under construction, so I tooled around with route 90 and 39 and then route 20 out to the west, got all turned around, and wound up in Joliet, Illinois FOUR hours after crossing the border. Silliness. Missy is a friend of mine from 2003, when both of us were having dark yet fun life events. I finally got to her place, met her marvelous tortoise-shell cat, and we spent a few hours, into the early am's, catching up from 2004 to the present, both crashed, and woke up about four hours later (both of us, recently, have been morning people, so if we stay up all night, we STILL get up at 7 and pay for it later). I got on the road and was in my house THREE hours later. Easy, direct, straight-up. Noon on Friday, I was back in Indianapolis. Thanks for everything, Matthew Sweeney! Well met, Karen! Hello, Kristina and Monique! I'll be back, Michelle, and Dan Jess and Koan: some day!

Hey Cody, let's Do This.

I am off to the Northeast to see my folks, in the suburbs of Boston, from Aug 10-14. This means I have mornings, Monday-Thursday, available for things like, oh, say, trips to the big city's Mysore program.

And this is also probably my shortest post ever. Hah! Rawr!

201st post! Intro to Intermediate: back in Indy.

So I have posted 200 times here; that's quick, I think, considering this isn't a year old yet. But we all know that I'm a chatty monster, anyway, so we expect this.

Intro to Intermediate: I subbed this class for ALL of June, and then I've been out of town since it started in July, so I have not TAKEN this class since May. Usually, my teacher, whose name is Carol (prior to my arrival, Carol WAS ashtanga in Indy, and she still largely is), takes the gang from sun salutations to somewhere around Eka Pada or Yoga Nidrasana or maybe tacks on Tittibhasana A and/or Pincha Mayurasana. We get inconsistent around the Eka Padas, but people like me and my able yoga buddy Lisa sometimes march onward and do the whole Titti sequence or more or different. Tangents are welcome and frequent. It's an exploration.

Tonight was so-so in sun salutations; I didn't feel brilliant as I sometimes do. I took the foot in Trikonasana. However, I was able to get the whole twist in Parivrtta Parsva, by using Matthew's "lower the back knee, lunge the front one forward, put the hand down, THEN come up on back foot" strategy. That began to turn it around. A shorter stance in the Prasaritas saw me with no head contact to floor, but close on all counts. Downright good balance in Utthita Hasta. Pasasana to the left was still shaky, but going right was solid. Backbends were fun, including Ustrasana and Laghuvajrasana. I did a Kapo drop-back-come-up and hit it just so. The actual pose, I got stuck in, but that's par for the course.

Jumped into Bakasana in two tries; twists were delicious; I was able to take a big handful of opposite thigh in Ardha Matsyendrasana. Eka Pada was a little heavier, tighter, than usual, even on the left side. I still did all sections, and of course I love the liftoff exit. Dwi Pada, however, was much better behaved! Suprising! I took righty back first, and lost the bind, because I forgot to tuck lefty over my arm. So I re-did it, and was able to hook the feet without them slipping over--that's REALLY unusual! I had to keep both hands on the floor, or I would surely have tipped, but still, this is a definite advance, it'll be interesting to see if it stays around. Of course, the pressup was fun and easy (most pressups are fun and easy for me). I did the Titti sequence, only surviving the burn because I step on breath pace through the ten paces.

Pincha Mayurasana is getting interesting; it took me two tries to hit it, and I had to prevent myself from sinking into the floor, and then wavering over to the right, sort of like the right shoulder was collapsing. I could actually FEEL the spine being less stiff than it was the last time I tried the pose: could this and the shoulder business, be all the backbending, at work? Note for the record that an unstiff spine in Pincha is NOT something that helps you get the pose.

I tried and utterly failed Karanda, again, largely because I can't make Padmasana very well without my hands. Oh well. I tried a Vrschikasana and apparently got pretty deep in it, and with no wall contact, go me! I have no idea what it looked like, but people were making impressive noises.

I added on a Mayurasana and a Nakrasana (holy crap is that pose hard). Then I was pretty smoked. Three backbends, on a sweaty mat, so no hand-walking. One long half-bend on the mat, with unusual action in the low back, which I tried to fix by really taking the ribs up, but it didn't want to. Two wall drop-backs had the same thing. Hmm, time to do that again later. Then closing, and really mellow svasana.

I have returned! I'll practice tomorrow early, and then hit the Tuesday night vinyasa show that I dig. And, of course, I will FINALLY polish off my Minnesota record; we have to get to the "on tiptoes" dropback!

Minnesota: Tuesday/Wednesday

The journal is, again, all over the place on Tuesday, but it's more straightforward, temporally speaking, on Wednesday. Here we go with Tuesday afternoon:

"Today after the adjustment clinic I felt a huge depression settling in, and it was really intense for about 90 minutes. Depression (and climbing, actually) always makes me crave booze. In both cases, while here, I have refused. Post-climbing booze is just celebratory habit, but depression and booze is wanting to make the pain stop. I've decided to sit with it. I know, now 3 hours later, that it's about leaving, the end of 'vacation,' the return to work and debt and a lonely house for a week. There is no doubt about this. I could go on at length about the circumstances but don't want to. They are on tap EVERY DAY that I live in Indianapolis, and so readily available."

(ED: regarding booze, I cleaned up while in Minnesota, the same way that I'd gone almost totally caffeine free. There was an occasional glass of wine with evening food, but no recreational booze, which is certainly not my Indiana habit)

"A few days ago (Sunday, actually) I missed a turn and, in fixing it, found a movie theater. I quickly pulled over to read the marquee, and GONZO was playing there (I can't see it, to my knowledge, anywhere in Indy) so I decided to go to a matinee today, from which I am just back. There is a LOT of music in that film, even over the talking heads and various voiceovers, and a deep, fairly uncomplicated nostalgia for the early 1960s in San Francisco. The film points to HST's 'alter ego' Raoul Duke and the way that HST was sort of immersed in (consumed by?) that character. We get chronological biography and long sequences on HST and politics, particularly his 'Freak Power' campaign for sheriff and all of the circumstances surrounding 'Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 72' (ED: a brilliant book). The film ends, of course, with HST's dynamic, explosive funeral, which he apparently designed in toto. Fame, I find, in watching this, is all the same, everywhere: there is always a Paris Hilton element to fame (ED: what I mean here specifically is that HST acquired groupies in the 70s and 80s, and became an event, rather than a reporter of events; with the possible exception of writing on 2001's terrorist actions, HST was not able to 'surface' from the depths of his own legend).

"Marichyasana adjustments: a new bit for me was to ground the buttocks, not just here, but in all forward bends. Pressing the hips down instead of the back forward, reduces injury risk. In Janu C, press the upright heel to the opposite thigh, not the knee to the floor. For the Maris, an adjuster can create the whole pose: take the ELBOW, not the WRIST, to crank the arm around. (ED: I'm going to leave out the exact movements in these adjustments, because I think they'll be subject to misunderstanding without a physical demonstration)

"(ED: back to thoughts on Kapo) This morning I forgot to put MORE of my face on the floor, to develop the back arch. That probably led to hand-shoulder panic. For what it's worth, I find putting a foot behind my head to be substantially less emotionally and physically challenging than this forehead-and-hands walk in Kapo.

"I am primed for some serious meditation right now; it's 8:30 pm local, and I'm nicely beat. Nothing like yesterday's insane exhaustion."

***(ED: Wednesday)***

"Morning backbending! Actually, let us begin at the beginning: Prasarita C, pinkies to floor. That's a first. Huge cranking in shoulders in the adjustment, 'extend your pinky fingers' and huh? WTF are my hands touching right now? It felt like my hands were touching something above my head, which they were, since I was upside down, but it was really disorienting. Then a solo show, strong practice and good jumps, to Navasana where I tried each round of vinyasa to take it BACK, not just UP (ED: see this Lino video for what I mean by "back"). Usually I take it 'up and forward' so I decided to just barely pass the feet between the hands, THEN next Navasana. REALLY hard.

"Then up to backbending: MS asked me if I'd done Kapo on my own and I hadn't, so 'try it on your own, 2 or 3 times.' So I did. My Kapo dropback remains easy but the walk to toes was no luck, not even with getting on my face. MS briefly told me, 'drop back to fingertips and rock up'. I'd heard him explain this to Karen in more depth: 'It's like dropping back from standing.' (ED: Karen has also explained this exercise; it's worth a look) One time, I did not succeed. Another, I came halfway up and was hanging, unable to finish it. Matthew walked past and looked at me for what felt like EASILY four seconds, and then lightly pushed me up to kneeling. Twice more, however, it worked (ED: which means, drop back to fingertip Kapo, rock back onto fingers, forward until hips actually MOVE forward, and then up. Sort of a Kapo Laghuvajrasana, if that makes any sense). Yay! Then I took on Kapo one more time, and no feet, panicky, rushed, messy. Depression. Meh. Depression at having, in large scale, to "take it up" again: work, debt, solo Kapotasana, no community of Ashtangis, Indianapolis.

"Post-practice, while I processed this, I realized that I have learned important things: I CAN take my toes. I CAN press up from back there (bye, Supta Virasana!). I HAVE directions, avenues, methods. (ED: note for the record that Karen and I BOTH have exactly this high praise for the week)

"Dropbacks: I have been intently body-listening to every day of these. Today's adjustment was to move the hips slightly forward on the way down, and to press the feet (via the hips) down on the way up. That is: FORWARD for DOWN, DOWN for UP. Four, as usual. Easier. I could feel the hip flexors really deliciously GIVE me the drop, with just a little stabilizing support from MS. These, I liked. Backed off the depression right away. Just now, I realized that I spaced Sirsasana in this practice. Eeek!"

(ED: final note)

"When I saw GONZO, I also saw a trailer for a new Coen Brothers thing, BURN AFTER READING. Clooney, McDormand, and Brad Pitt in something of a reprise of his stoner character in TRUE ROMANCE. Looks like good absurd, eccentric Coen fun."

Minnesota: Tuesday.

First off, today's practice, my first since Thursday, was really enjoyable. I LIKED it. No giant breakthroughs, no tragedies, just a fun thing to do. One doesn't always enjoy doing this stuff. And FAST! Something like 95 minutes for all of Primary, ten poses from Intermediate, five wheels (5 breaths each--hard!!), two hangbacks without wall, two hangbacks with wall, two attempts at the heels-up dropback, neither successful (i.e., I chickened out and stood up), and closing and several minutes in seated meditation, after. The Krisna Das CD ran out at the fifth wheel, and it's 72 minutes.

"Tuesday morning! Woke up with a start, packed food, water, rug, mat, CDs for the 20 minute drive, and this journal. Ate a handful of almonds and this organic Pop-Tart sort of thing, bought pre-trip at a Trader Joe's. Arrived at 5:45 and there were already about 8 people there, moving, some in late sun salutations. I was more tired today, still fairly light and powerful, but notably with more inertia than yesterday. Some breaths after hard poses. MUCH more sweat, I'm not sure what that was about. The dristi challenge du jour was watching the woman behind me do totally graceful straight-leg jump throughs and, later, Intermediate up to Pincha Mayurasana. Baddha Konasana, like yesterday, was the biggest I've ever done; face beyond feet in both folds. Barely an adjustment today until my bit of 2nd: take a shorter stance in Parivrtta Trik; "Heels together in Pasasana!" That was for me going to my left. I have to tiptoe it, and the right hip fights me all the way.

"Variously tired through 2nd's backbends. Ustrasana the most so. Laghuvajrasana: elbows should not touch the floor. I asked about this and MS said it's all about getting the arms as straight as possible, even if this pose looks like Supta Virasana. Eeek! I managed to get up from it but it was NOT easy. I waited a WHILE for Kapo today. When it came, "slow, slow" on the dropback, hands touch, walk in, head down, press up, walk in, head down, repeat. I started to panic as this happened, nonetheless hands were taken again to toes, and while the effort of GETTING there was greater, the POSE was easier. I could breathe more, I thought the elbows all the way down (they didn't go, but I thought it), and then MS had me do 3 breaths in a bent-arm Kapo B and up (I doubt I can get up by myself in it (ED: not any more you don't).) Backbends from the floor were so-so; SUPER tired. I pressed up 6 times total, with one hand slip and one walk-in. Then a long standing half-bend, 4 against the wall, on more long one on the mat wall-less, and then 4 assisted dropbacks, "slow, slow" on the way back, and I noticed, with each one that my hands got a bit CLOSER to my feet (thanks, striped mat!).

"MS had less contact in the dropbacks today, and I could really feel the hip flexors LET IT GO. To come up, Matthew had me swing the arms out to the side rather than up overhead (easier). In my wall dropbacks, I was actually able to move the hips forward to reduce the "hand spring" to almost nothing. Yay! So, all is coming. Again, the assist is "rocking up" from the backbend, and I can tell it'll go. Good times.

"Ah! Before I forget! Music! Sunday, to class: Morrison Motel (Doors, 1970)
Monday, to class: Let it Bleed (Stones, 1969). Tuesday, to class: Mars Hotel (Dead, 1974).
********************************
(ED: there is more Tuesday but I'll post it later)

Minnesota: Monday.

This transposition from the written journal is, as I wrote it originally, all over the place, both in terms of topic and in terms of chronology, so I might provide some anchors here and there as to where I was and how this whole day happpened:

"Monday morning, 9 am! Breakfast walk with Karen, after Mysore. Scone (ginger blueberry!) and peppermint tea. (ED: I'd gone virtually caffeine-free, as some readers know, before this workshop trip, and I like it so much that I'm still, with an exception in yesterday's coffee shop, off caffeinated coffee and sparingly consuming green tea now and again. And for Cody, I think the key to appreciating the scone is to put yummy ingredients into it, like ginger and blueberries. It's mostly in the nose, the 'subtle aspects' if you will, rather than the major taste-bud flavor appeal of the buttery muffin, for example.)

"TOES, people. Last things first: for me to get my toes in Kapotasana took a head-and-hands walk. Hands to floor (ED: recall that I drop back into a start position for Kapo fairly easily, hands about 8 inches from feet), and then PUSH the head UP, walk hands in, set head down, repeat as necessary. It's push UP, INCREASE arch in spine, WALK hands in, PUT head down. Much like putting more of your face on the floor with each notch that the hands creep in. Finally, hands taken firmly to toes. I mean in the 'basin' where the toes become the foot proper. Elbows downward but not flat, ribs inflated, breathing SUPER ragged. Lumbar bent more than I'm used to. Hands BACK and flat, PRESS, 3 breaths, assisted come up. Wow!

(ED: this was, for the record, my first EVER toe-touch in Kapotasana; never have I so much as grazed a toe, EVER. It taught me a lot, and in the posts to come, you will see me get VERY chatty indeed about all things backbending, all about the front body in toto)

"Then backbends: 'Go gently, that'll be sensitive,' were Matthew's words. All the same, very good energy. 2 wheels, most sensitive actually in the QUADS (boy howdy!!) not the low back. Big, easy, straight-armed. Then down, quads still tired, and up 3 more times. No 10-breath wheels; 5 each, and that was enough. Then a couple hang backs, then 4 dropbacks on wall (with control, hands about waist-high, a little lower?) and then 4 assisted dropbacks and rock-ups (with rocking ONTO feet, and hips and feet press DOWN to stand). The feet virtually PIERCE the floor, I saw in my mind's eye something like blades actually extend INTO the floor when rocked up. Feet press down hard and the action comes up through the quads with MASSIVE 'pulling closed' of the hip flexors and into the glute medius. Think of this in coming to standing.

"Karen and I went for some serious circumlocution, trying to find a restaurant that was, it turned out, closed, but we wound up with tasty breakfast anyway. I could feel the hip flexors and glutes returning to solid form, and I can still feel it now, in the glassed-in 'lobby' hallway of the 2nd floor studio, where the shoes are kept; there are pretty Smith-'n-Hawken-looking wood benches and I'm sitting on one in a sort of modified Ardha Matsyendrasana/Gomukhasana position (ED: chronologically speaking, the day went like this: Mysore, breakfast, return to studio, sit and write all of this, St. Paul, back to studio, adjustments, back to St. Paul, climbing adventure, back to St. Paul, crashing, see ya Tuesday.)

(ED: and now we continue moving back in time during the Mysore practice)

"I got to Setu Bandhasana, asked MS 'What shall I do now?' and he said, 'Let me see the last two' and I re-did Urdhva Mukha Paschimo, hitting it on the second roll up (uncommon!) and Setu B (ED: that pose has always liked me; in my first year of Primary, the 'poses' which came most easily to me were Tolasana, Sirsasana and Setu Bandhasana) and then did Pasasana, checked in, did Krounchasana (it's important in Second to jump FROM the pose and also INTO the pose), up to a second Laghuvajrasana (I'd done it once, but did it again, flubbed the exit a bit, but did it) and then we did Kapo.

"Early on, Matthew recommended in Surya B that I move my arms slightly forward in Utkatasana (shoulders were out of line with neck and center) and ALSO that I jump back to plank rather than to chaturanga (ED: the reason for this is in his '5 sequences' book where he links the jumps in Surya to the jumps through and back and thence to handstand). This took me at least two whole salutations to grok. A big, BIG adjustment in Prasarita C. Feet CLOSER, so the ankles don't hyperextend. Not a thing in Utthita Hasta. (ED: actually, not a thing through the whole practice, until the discussion about Intermediate, and the assisted dropbacks; no one touches me in Supta K, for example; even in SF a year ago and more, I was only adjusted in Supta K ONE TIME, and true, I do bind hands and feet solo, but the feet aren't crossed over my head; one ankle remains on the floor, always; eh, I'm not worried.)

******************************************

"It is now Tuesday morning, just post-practice, and I am at the now open Zumbro, about to eat what looks like very tasty breakfast. Let me see if I can catch up: I was completely space-your-faced after the Monday Kapo, and after some writing, I made it back to the apartment at about 10:30, showered, and set off for standing pose adjustments from 12-3. Many were like what I give already, particularly in the Triks and Parsvakonasanas. The Prasarita C adjustment is to Face the Hands, so that you turn as the bender's pose deepens. You can step between the arms, facing away, so that your calf is against the thoracic spine, and you guide the hands down. MS says that he prefers that people learn how to balance in Utthita Hasta. That's cool. Each morning, so far, I dance in it. We are picking up with the Viras (and the three dimensions in which the hips can be unbalanced) today at noon.

"Yes, there was a climbing adventure. On the way to the adjustment clinic, I picked up about 20 oz of mixed salads from a Whole Foods en route: quinoa and roasted tomatoes, raw kale with cranberries and pine nuts, tabouleh, artichoke hearts and roasted peppers in oily dressing (ED: this was freakin' TASTY. For the record, I can not, EVER, refuse tabouleh, even though this particular tabouleh was kind of mediocre.) Post-adjustments and salad, I drove out on 94 East into a massive traffic jam and wound up at Vertical Endeavors. VE is a HUGE gym, with about 210 degrees of climbing walls surrounding the entrance, but they advertise 36' high walls, which is really only true for the "lead climbing pit," sunken about 10 feet lower than the rest of the gym floor. Almost all of the walls included some kind of overhanging feature, so the ratings almost never reflect the start, but rather the 20' high crux move on an angled face. Nonetheless, I'd brought shoes, so I paid the $13 day fee and bouldered around. I did about 10' worth of every 5.10 and 5.11 (and 5.12) in the place; they were all pretty simple at the start anyway, so it was more of an endurance test than anything else. Eventually I got anxious that this would create substantial shoulder tightness, so I took a rope and did some over-and-behind head stretches and a few fingertip half-bends (toward drop backs).

"When I got back to town (ED: now completely spaced and dehydrated from the exertion of the morning practice AND the also-very-sweaty climbing adventure) I bought a veggie sub (provolone, sprouts, avocado, tomato, cucumber; tasty enough) and went home, spaced out to the core. It took HOURS for me to regulate; water, raisins, apple, trying to get blood sugar and hydration to settle into some normal frequency. I went to sleep at about 10:30 and the 5:15 alarm woke me up (ED: I'd woken up more than an hour before Mysore, on Monday morning). Stone unconsciousness!

Back to the present: Warrior Soul.

Today I was first, over in Brownsburg, which is in the western suburbs of Indy, and then down in Bloomington, for, as I've said, one of the twice-monthly meetings with my advisor and grad students.

I pulled a couple Matthew Sweeney adjustments on my four students this morning, in particular the guide-by-the-elbow Marichyasana adjustments, which are marvelous ways to get people both into and deeper into, those poses.

After a meeting with the writers, I usually put in a few hours at the climbing gym down in Bloomington, because it's the one I first climbed at, and it's the one I first set at, and I'm downright sentimental about it. It's also got the highest walls in the state and they let me do whatever I like for free, so I go and set routes or do whatever, and it's all marvelous. The guys in charge know me, and if I'm down there a lot, some of the climbers get to know me and my penchant for hip-swaying technical moves, and I talk them through said moves, and we get along, and it's wonderful.

Anyway: there is old stuff in there (8 weeks makes a route "old"), and I decided to set some new stuff over a feature called "the bulge," which is an about 10-feet high overhang-to-level-to-slab feature, basically a big trapezoid which protrudes from the wall. It's hard to set on that, because overhanging moves are generally MUCH harder than vertical moves (you have to REALLY pull your weight).

I put up an easy 5.9 called "Do a Little Dance," because after the bulge, you do a little foot-movement session in order to pull the next move; there was also a 5.10c called "Gives Us the Precious," which is more my crimpy-holds-and-high-steps mix, and finally a great big powerful thing which I called "Warrior Soul" and rated, "5.stout" and suggested maybe upper 5.11?

Warrior Soul is the name of a band from New York, and I nipped it from a shirt which a metalhead friend of mine in college used to wear. When I use it in the gym, I'm thinking of "The Rock Warrior's Way," a book by Arno Ilgner, which relies on warrior literature to talk about climbing and confronting fear and finding inner focus.

If you don't speak climbing, my apologies, but here is how Warrior Soul goes:

There is a sit start; your butt's on the floor and you pull yourself up to standing. The handholds are crimpy, so you need to core power your way to standing, and hit a slopy little sidepull, and then reach for a just-barely-there lip of a pocket which slopes downward on the bulge (the pocket itself being ungrabbable due to the angle). An awkward hip sway will permit a high step, and then you grab another crimpy-edged sloper, and reach for either a giant hand-filling pinch or a sloper on an overhang. It turns out that you'll need both of them to pull up and step. On the friendlier slab side of the bulge, there is a big slippery sloper, and a little ridge. The ridge, with just the right (and smart) hip sway, will let you swing up onto the bulge. The vertical part of the route after that is full of off-balance high steps and big pinches and hand-crossing moves on big slopers. It's HARD.

I'm chatting up the moves like this because usually I up the technical quotient when I need a high rating, and I did this one more with actual holds and straight-up pulling (well, and of course I can't resist a technical hip-sway movement, that's guaranteed on all my stuff). The ashtanga workshop in Minnesota has me thinking keenly about body-mind and movement, a sort of unification, and it influenced my setting particularly on Warrior Soul; some puzzles, some straight-up hard effort, some rewards, some time "out" of your head, some time "in" your head.

My setting shoes need a SERIOUS resole, the rubber which protects the uppers from wear is totally cracked and peeled and beat. Must find fifty bucks to set aside for that.

Thanks for putting up with this evening diversion: back to the Mysore mornings tomorrow, before Karen gets way, way WAY ahead of me.

Minnesota: Sunday

A mix of on-site writing and present commentary:

"The first day! Yes, much happened overnight: for example, I met Koan the six-year old, who takes lemon-lime flavored Omega-3 supplements at night (we figure that he has no idea it's fish oil). I have found a home for these five days, and it is good. I have eaten chicken, to no ill effect. (ED: while I can, apparently still, eat meat to no ill effect, I've been almost entirely veggie for about 3 1/2 years.) This morning I woke up at 6 local, which bodes well for morning Mysore. I had water, sat on the floor reading about French banliueue (ED: suburb, but in France, banlieue means racially-marked neighborhood with high unemployment; marginal communities) films, until about 7:30 when the house woke up. I also did some sitting in cobra, feeling the long car journey work itself out. Then I packed up, put on Morrison Motel in the car, and headed for Edina.

"Michelle, who runs the show, is very lively and pregnant and is good energy. Matthew, directly in front of whom my mat sits, has a familiar long-term yoga practitioner energy. The Swenson brothers have it too. There's age in the practice, but mellow and humor too (ED: I wonder if yoga practitioners age like scotch whiskies do? Will we all someday be smoky and mellow? For what it's worth, I think Karen has better covered Matthew's teaching style).

"Intermediate: we did progressive mula bandha exercises and then 2nd series from 4 A's, 3 B's to Eka Pada Sirsasana (no forward fold). For checkpoints, MS is big on students being able to come UP from Laghuvajrasana. Also, he is not set in stone on the triad 'Mari D, Supta K, dropbacks before Intermediate.' As many seasoned teachers do, he makes the call as to who gets how much Intermediate.

"I learned to point the feet in Dhanurasana, and also to point the tucked foot in Ardha Matsyendrasana. In Eka Pada, the hips allowed me to put the right and then the left foot behind my head (yay!). People had a thousand questions about how and when and if to move into Intermediate, how the sequence works. Along with our shortened Intermediate, we did Q and A and then a re-warmup and 3 backbends and then a long dropback workshop (ED: it seems that we combined the Intermediate class with the dropback and mula bandha class; in the afternoon we inverted).

"DROPBACKS: here's the thing:
1. do 4-5 rounds of the final backbend you do. If that's full wheel, take 5 of them and see if you can hold them all for 6-7 breaths; aim to hold for 10 breaths.

2. Half-bending (prayer hands or crossed over chest): arch back from standing, and play with engaging either/or (or both) the abs and the glutes; find out not what you're told to do, but what WORKS for you.

3. Half-bending with wall. CONTROL is the name of the game. Go back and control the entire movement. Softly, as softly as you possibly can, fingertip the wall, and NO wall-walking. Leave the hands where they land. Hang for a few breaths, if possible, BEFORE you reach for the wall (harder: hang with arms fully extended). Bend arms and hips move back (towards the wall; this increases your back bend, lowers your head) once or twice, and then push into the wall and spring back to standing. With time, move the hips forward and use them to come up, less and less hand-spring being required.

(ED: the major difference between this and what I was doing in late springtime is the control element. I'd bend, hang, and then drop, getting the hands as low as possible, and often Ker-PLUNK against the wall. Notably, while working the more controlled half-bend, my hands did land higher up, but my hip flexors did NOT freak out, well, not until Thursday, but I think that was just general muscle soreness).

4. Inhale/exhale: You can hang back, inhale up a LITTLE BIT, and then exhale back a little deeper. You can do this in any half-bending variation.

5. 'It's gonna feel better, or it's gonna feel worse. If it feels worse, do less until it feels better, and then do more.' (ED: this, because it sort of directly addresses my hip flexor pain, was one of my favorite Matthew quotes. It has a marvelous simplicity which is applicable to about any effort to do any pose at all.)

The room holds 18-20 people close and comfortable. Look out rolling into Parsva Dhanurasana!

Nuggets:

Flexy people are often made to do more Primary to develop strength even though they can pull poses like Viparita Dandasana and bend backwards all day long.

For MS, Primary has a "30% flub rate," which means you can have SOME trouble with, say, Marichyasana D and still do some Intermediate. Intermediate has a 10-15% flub rate. If you have some trouble in Kapo, OK, but if you also get stuck in Dwi Pada, you stop. Advanced has about a 2% flub rate.

MS is not a fan of full vinyasa: "just do more Primary!"

"Ashtanga grows like fungus."

Poses:

Parivrtta Parsvakonasana: the twist is ideally 90 degree lunge with back heel down. To build it with good alignment, drop the back knee and lunge forward somewhat with the front knee. Keep each foot on its OWN side of the mat. Slip elbow over front knee and hand to floor; then straighten back leg. Maybe put right hand STRAIGHT up. Drop the back heel and pin the little toe to the floor. (Hard!) Only then do you swing the hand up and over. We did this as a group, and many of us got a real lesson in the hips. Good times!

Eka Pada Sirsasana stretch: pigeon lunge with twist. Palms together; put the opposite elbow from the front leg down (that is, if you're left-leg-forward, put the right elbow down, ideally outside the left thigh). Prayer hands UPRIGHT, not extended, head UP. Radically increases movement in the hip.

Parsva Dhanurasana: look straight back, as if you were standing and looking at the ceiling. Feet still press; bring the pose from there.

Keep doing balancing poses as you get Intermediate; they decline if you don't. So, even when you split, keep doing Utthita Hasta and Ardha Baddha Padma.

Bakasana: arms STRAIGHT, please.

Cues during salutations and vinyasa: 'Release your face...unclench your teeth...'

***********************************************

"Nighttime recovery of the afternoon: it was, indeed, head and handstands. MS was quite silly with us at times, as most workshops eventually get. Example: 'I don't want to see any full handstands yet; don't make me come over there and spank your bum.'

Knees TOGETHER when you come up into/down from an inversion puts more effort into the center line, and builds strength. Knees apart when you come up (or go down) gives greater flexibility but reduces stability.

I learned how to hold what is essentially a handstand planche: tuck up, thighs to chest, and HOLD. Shoulders BACK. Armpits OPEN. The shoulders back, gives the stability to hold that position. (ED: this is also what you see Matthew doing in his posters, say, when he jumps back from Bakasana: he jumps UP first, into this position.)

Handstand, in full expression, ALSO means transitions in and out, say, to and from Urdhva Dhanurasana. It is not a single inversion by itself; it is a process.

You learn how to get stable in inversions by coming DOWN with control; that builds going UP with control.

And....alright, alright, alright! I asked MS about this persistent hip flexor pain I get from backbending work, and he said, 'Well actually that sounds like good news to me,' which is EXACTLY what all the other backbend-saavy yogis I've asked, have said. Rats! Hah!"

Next time, the first day of Mysore style! Today (Saturday) I'm going to Bloomington to chit-chat about articles and dissertation chapters with my advisor and grad students, and that will probably involve a bit of climbing (there was some on the first Mysore Monday too, in Minnesota) so you're unlikely to hear from me until tomorrow, but know that I have QUITE a bit to say about touching my toes in a backbend.

Minnesota catchup: Saturday travel

As promised, bits and pieces from the journal I wrote in. I'll quote whatever I directly cite: yes, I know, you want THE YOGA, right? It's coming. This is in part to commit the total event to memory, but also just to prove that I can write about something that's not an asana practice. Don't worry, you'll get yoga aplenty, I have 11 pages front and back before I run out, and that doesn't even cover Thursday afternoon or Thursday/Friday's drive.

So then:

"Currently parked at Hinsdale Oasis on I294N. There is a guy with five brightly colored passengers. There was 200 MILES of rain. People think it's 8:45 am, so only breakfast is open, but I've been up since 5 and because IN is in the eastern time zone I think it's 10 am. Yes, time's weird. I'm driving a rental car, a Chevy Cobalt (never heard of it either). Ahh, and I've just executed a quick Dancer's pose to release the hip flexors. Bet there's sun before long.

"Deforest, Wisconsin. Yes, just like Deforest Kelley. I'm in a Burger King parking lot, next to the 'Cheese Chalet' and there's a massive plastic model cow to my right, probably 15' from hoof to horn-tip, and family is all gathered around the feet and the gigantic pink udder. Photos are being taken. Make no mistake--when I say family, I mean about 11 people, under this freaking cow. Hmm...Arby's, Subway, Holiday Inn Express, the Cheese Chalet provides local color here. That, and the world seems to lack payphones.

(ED: yes, in actuality, it's that I lack a cell phone, but I inverted it; clever, eh?)

"Minneapolis! Well, Saint Paul, to be precise. I have arrived: 5:21 local, which means a 12 hour journey, quite a day trip. I am on Goodrich Avenue between Chatsworth and Oxford. This neighborhood is crowded streets, both-sides parking, and completely architecturally nuts. It's a series of rented apartments, no two of which, adjacent or not, look alike. Some have gratuituous gingerbread (yes, it always is), somen have twin gables, some have flat roofs, some are sharply pointed, some windows are broad, others narrow, placement of said windows seems to be totally random and individualized, sone houses have screened porches, some unscreened, some porchless. Some seem southern mansion style, some Victorian, and there is an utterly random spread of painted flatboard and stucco exteriors. It's like some kind of anti-subdivision, or a cosmic collection of rentable apartments that you find in a black hole.

"Currently my hosts seem not to be home, so I'm writing this while seated on the back of the car. No doubt I should have found a phone before this, but in the days before the cell phone, this would be standard operating procedure. Western Wisconsin is SHOCKINGLY pretty in high summer. Green hills, wind-waving grass, sometimes nothing but Nature as far as one can see. How do they do that? Farms? Conservation? (ED: at my car return, the clerk told me that it's because no one wants to damn live there in winter, hah!) Indiana would either pave it or carve it into huge treeless acres of soybeans. How have they remained so well-treed here? For MILES!

"I still have substantial road spaciness. It's hard to remember sights seen. I know that in my shorts and somewhat ragged-necked t-shirt and big black hat and hematite necklace, that I feel very 'Austin, Texas.' This neighborhood, while on some front lawns VERY anti-war and pro-Obama, is so NICE (bicyclists sailing easily up and down the lanes, people saying hello in the street to strangers, no crime, no trace of poverty's iron-fistedness) that it makes me feel like I must be glowing with bohemian incandescence."

Next installment: the first day of formal yoga workshop.

Minnesota: brief highlights and more to come.

1) It was completely marvelous and I recommend going to hang out with Matthew if he comes to your part of town. For that matter, go to the studio in Minneapolis, it rules too.

2) I drove ten hours on Saturday and was STILL able to do Intermediate (well, except for Kapo) up to the first bit of Eka Pada Sirsasana on Sunday morning. Hah, aaaoowww, too hot!

3) On Monday morning, I not only got up to Kapo, but was taken to my toes in it. That's a major first, a first to be noted. More about it later.

4) Provocative: on Thursday morning, MS recommended that I bend backwards from standing and TAKE THE HEELS UP. That was some fun. More about THAT later too.

5) Go meet Karen (DZM). She is very cool and fun. Hey Karen, grab my elbow!

Minnesota: The Plan, Stan.

I will be up early tomorrow (Saturday) and drive, in a rental car, 10 hours.

Sunday morning will be my first appearance at the Matthew Sweeney gig; it's, I hear, to be some form of led (or intro) Intermediate, and then a drop-backs, mula bandha, meditation workshop.

Then four days of morning Mysore and afternoon adjustment clinics.

I will drive 7 hours, apparently, on Thursday afternoon, to a friend's place outside Chicago. That's after a morning Mysore. Haven't been up for 18-19 hours in a while, should be interesting.

Back here Friday, the morning of which my partner leaves for Seattle for a week, and it's a moon day too, I hear.

Perhaps temp work to begin on Monday. Quick little July!

I'm not anticipating a lot of email/blog ability, as I'm not taking this machine, but I'll keep a written journal and transcribe all the tasty bits later.

Cheers!

More about caffeine, back to Primary, and Miles Davis

I have, so far, had a mug of green tea, today, in terms of caffeine. It's been easy and brilliant, to let it go. Sure, I stil crave an afternoon nap, but no headaches, so all is well.

Quick, modified Primary this morning: back outside, 5 A's, 4 B's ("do them until you begin to sweat," says Maehle), and every pose, with modifications for comfort. That meant hand to foot, not big toe, in Trikonasana, hands in prayer, not down, in Parivrtta Parsvakonasana, jumpbacks to knees and then walking back to chaturanga, hands to feet but no deep cranking forward bends. The only poses for which I did the full expression, close to as deeply as usual, were Marichyasana D and Navasana.

This was a curative practice, a healing, not-pressing practice, and I liked it. I tacked on Intermediate poses up to Laghuvajrasana, and then did a second Ustrasana as Kapo; both the low back and the low abs sent up alarms about hanging back, so I did no Kapo.

Three bent-arm wheels, feeling deep belly-ripping in the abs and strain in the lower back muscles, and then closing. By the time I moved inside (because of mosquitoes), ONE HOUR had gone by. Quickest practice EVER.

Miles Davis: famous for cool jazz and for a marvelous number called "So What." The version he and Coltrane do, in 1955, on that double-disk set, is hard to match. (backstory: this is the same cd set that is cited in JERRY MAGUIRE, which is how I came to own said cd set). "So What" is a good way to summarize my current practice state of mind. The backbends totally reflected my current SANTOSHA (contentment), not my actual muscular state. They always do. Since I am sometimes, but not often, deeply satisfied with life in the Midwest and with this crazy loan debt, I expect (and accurately so) my backbending practice to soar up and down like a rollercoaster.

And, so what. It's not like I have a traditional teacher; it's not like more than half a dozen people in this WHOLE STATE even have the slightest clue what "the tradition" even most generally says.

If life brings me to a traditional teacher who drops me back and who opens up my ready capabilities for Intermediate, great. If that never happens, great. So what.

Caffeine, glutes, gifts from the pantry.

Over here Chris, the guy who teaches the vinyasa classes in town I really like, is leading a three-month program for about a dozen people, re: better long-term fitness. There are dietary elements, workout elements, a real wholistic approach, from what I know and hear.

One of these is (perhaps drastically) reduced caffeine consumption. I go to-and-fro on caffeine; the more stressed or lonely I am, the more coffee appeals to me (it has both a chemical and a social element, and all coffeehouses know about the social element: hey, look, big cozy chairs, why not sit down and have 32oz or so?).

I've gone cold turkey on coffee in the past, and paid for it (headaches), but I've also progressively decreased the dose to nothing, a few times, and that has worked (the methadone approach, hah!). So, with Minnesota approaching quickly, I've decided to creep down to caffeine-free. Today, I'm a cup of black tea in, and that's all. No headaches, although I am quite tired every few hours and crave naps. Currently I'm making friends with a cup of decaf, and actually, I do feel some better, the tiredness aside.

Glutes: this morning in a class uptown actually called "power yoga," I rediscovered that my glutes are a major element in my being puzzled by whatever asana or movement it is, that puzzles me for the long-term. The class was lunge-heavy, and also involved a sequence that I would have called Vyaghrasana (Tiger), which I think I found on Yogadancer. Anyway, for the Tiger sequence, you come to a hands-and-knees position and then extend the opposite hand and leg out; for extra challenge, you sweep them to the side.

Between Warrior 3's and the Tiger sequence and twisting lunges and such, my glutes got tired and sore (as they often have in Chris' sequences of standing splits, half-moons and Warrior 3's) and they desperately wanted twists, Virasana and Supta Virasana, so I gave them those poses. By "glutes" I mean, of course, not just the glute max, but in particular the glute medius, which seems to be the real challenge in certain poses for me.

Take, for example, the now historic battle to get my right hip to permit a half-lotus. The left one permitted this quickly; definitely within the first year of yoga practice. But the right one? I remember knee-way-up-in-the-air for seated half-lotus, I remember foot-8-inches-from-hip in seated half-lotus, I remember MONTHS of TOTAL IMPOSSIBILITY in even faking a full lotus, and what was silliest about it was that the left foot would snuggle right up in there.

Over two years of determined practice, and a lot of self-practice and double-practice and ENDLESS research on anatomy and the poses and the exact movement of the hip, and options and modifications, and absolutely RELENTLESS bothering of online and real people about how and why and what.

Hmmm, does this degree of obsessiveness sound familiar (cough, backbends)???

It took until my home-practice warmup for SF, in the fall and winter of 2006-07, for the right hip to RELIABLY permit a standing, seated, and then full, lotus. That's over two years, close to three. I only began doing a full Garbha Pindasana, and Kukkutasana, in 2007. Two summers ago, I was very often NOT reaching my hand to the ground, in a standing half-lotus forward fold, with the right foot up.

So if the glute medius is involved, deeply, in backbending, I might well expect a long, productive conversation to occur here. It took this morning's "power yoga" to turn me on to that.

It's not "the pose," it's not "how long I've practiced," it's not some risk of being "less hardcore," it's YE OLDE GLUTES. You remember how protracted the struggle was. You come to expect how protracted the struggle might be.

It takes THIS for me to even WANT to go in with beginner's mind here. Man, you'd think I was a big ole stubborn TAURUS or something, with a serious warrior complex (Hi, Ares Moon!).

Today I was hunting around for pasta in the pantry, as this evening will be my partner's triumphant return from London, and the dish du jour is to be pasta, garlic, olive oil and red pepper.

What I found was

1) dried prunes! Excitement! I love all dried fruit, but the dried prune, slightly rehydrated, is like a concentrated plum; it is power and intensity and it's pure deliciousness.

2) dried black beans! Resource! There are canned chipotles in the house, and NOTHING better matches a chipotle pepper than black beans. I immediately tossed the beans into water to soak, and tomorrow, I shall prepare restaurant-quality Tex-Mex goodies.

Salvador Dali once said that cooking was a Surrealist activity because one took numerous isolated ingredients and combined them into something which no longer resembled, in finished form, the original start ingredients. I'm not all the way sold on that idea (ex: black beans), but I can think of cases where it is wonderfully true, and of course, I seize ANY opportunity to be a Surrealist.

A little about backbends and a lot about movies.

Good points in the latest post's comments:

1) No enlightenment will come from dropping back. Sure, it's a gatekeeper to Second, but as I'm practicing solo, 3 hours in any direction from an authorized teacher, and have neither time nor finances to even GO to said teacher, to say nothing of the fact that they'd have to get used to my practice, estimate it, and THEN do assisted dropbacks, off the menu dropping-back goes.

2) Physical stress, I can and have handled. Forward bends? Kurmasana? The over two-year battle with half-lotusing the right hip? Emotional stress, I need to reduce. Financial strain MAXES ME OUT on emotional stress. A yoga pose, adding to this? Silliness. Stupidity, even.

3) I don't believe it's possible to learn dropbacks solo, at least for me. Therefore, I'm going to do wheel pressups just like I always have done, and on days I want more discipline, I'll stop at Kapo. On days I want less discipline, I'll do something different. Maybe I'll even just do "power yoga." The future will be a combination of more and less disciplined days. That will be that.

There will be no more advice, questions, stress, or nonsense about dropping back here. EVER. If you want me to drop back, you come on down here and teach me to do it with your own two hands.

Now, then: Movies. I study movies, that's what my major field is. In my spare time
(which I've had quite a bit of these last two weeks), I've seen a lot of stuff, and Netflix is to blame for most of this. Let's see if I can recoup some:

X2000, Short films by Francois Ozon. Brilliant; funny. Primarily couples in bed, with a lot of French lyricism and some comic shock and some obtuseness which only the French art cinema (well, and the Italian art cinema) has really mastered.

Sunshine, by Danny Boyle and crew (same crew as the marvelous 28 Days Later). Sci-fi done via an ensemble cast, the real point of which is emotional relationships under containment. It's super pretty to look at (great effects) but in terms of plot, it's entirely about the cast and secondarily about metaphysics, a sort of literal "sun worship." There is transcendence, but in the same way (quite reminiscent actually) as there is in 2001. Look for claustrophobia and emotions under life-or-death strain.

Nightwatch, by Timur Bekmambetov. A trailer on some DVD led me to this (and to Sunshine, actually). Netflix Instant Viewer provided the experience: a vampire movie which is only incidentally about vampires (i.e., it's not Dracula by a long shot). It's a seminally postmodern, genre-citing, slightly incoherent, very violent, exceedingly fun ride, about both a father-son relationship and the end of the world. It has a mythology, superheroes, some of the coolest car stunts ever, and incredibly dynamic, fun camerawork, as well as one hell of a big imagination running the whole show. Segments of violence are followed by segments of conversational drama or even comedy, and we have to take a lot for granted, and suspension of disbelief is NOT optional. Somehow it all holds together, and it casts a magical spell. Compelling sort of post-Tarantino Russian art cinema with a high violence quotient and heavy metal music and screeching tires and bloodsuckers and ancient history and swords and shields. Trippy.

Daywatch, the sequel: higher budget, and twice as many special effects shots. Still consistently sort of incoherent, but so beautiful to look at, that if you suspend that disbelief and simply ride it, eventually the narrative holes fill in just enough to let it by. Overall, a better film than Nightwatch, more focused, but this would be totally nonsensical without seeing Nightwatch first. The vision of the apocalypse here is even gloomier and more total than that of 28 Days Later or I Am Legend. The final recovery of the world is archetypal stuff. Powerful. Again, the camerawork is high-tech, top-notch, and knife-edge, even when it's so obviously playing the digital card at highest pitch.

Wanted: hey, Bekmambetov made it to US screens, just after I saw his vampire duo! Did you expect me not to go? Early on, you can tell its his same pyrotechnic camerawork: speed motion, stop and reverse motion, digital zooms. The mythical story is part comic book and part Bekmambetov. He's said in interviews, that the (pardon me) graphic novel on which this is based, is very much like his own material, and I agree. Everyone is super-bad-ass, which is part of the point of this story; it's essentially a battle of superheroes with a father-son intrigue in the middle, and a climax which totally out-Woos John Woo. "Why waste your life sitting at a desk, when there's a caged lion inside?" Yes, yes indeed.

Irreversible, by Gaspar Noe. Now, I'd heard about this film ever since it was released in, what, 2002? Graphic violence and a more graphic rape scene, with vertiginous photography and a totally unredeemable amoral message. The "New French Extremism" poster-child. Nonetheless, I'm interested in the NFE and so I had at it. The camerawork was, true to life, unlike anything I'd ever seen. Put a Steadicam on a rollercoaster, or better, in a tesseract. Like a Steadicam photographing a rave in a tesseract. Crazy, indescribably dizzying, camerawork. Yes, the violence, both in word and deed, is EXTREMELY intense. Emotional passions run high and, despite the camerawork and other distancing techniques, one bonds with these characters; the intensity, the need, the drive. The rape is, I hear, 8 minutes long and it's practically unwatchable. The verbal violence, the way the rapist charges up his own desires, stokes his own imagination, and there is both sexual violence and then even more repellent physical violence, and it's all stoked by this guy's willful management of his own rage. It's INTENSE. But since the film, like Memento, is told in segments from END to START, the film becomes more lyrical and French and even beautiful, as it proceeds, which makes it even MORE disturbing. Finally, we see only a quick-flickering black-and-white screen, with quick camera rotation, which, if it doesn't make you epileptic, brings the film to a close. Unforgettable.

Vanishing Point (1971). Something like the missing link between Easy Rider and all of the car-driving-hero epics of the late 70s, like the Cannonball Runs, and the Every Which Ways that Eastwood did. A man drives too quickly from Colorado to San Francisco and, as we see his past told in flashbacks, crashes intentionally into a police blockade, and is killed in the explosion. End. Classic moral ambiguity about the outlaw hero, same as MOST films from this period of Hollywood filmmaking. Compelling, but bitter. Bonnie and Clyde? Thunderbolt and Lightfoot? They're all here.

On deck, we have Fernando Arrabal's VIVA LA MUERTE. I'm told that this is like Jodorowsky (speaking of which, see his incomparable HOLY MOUNTAIN, that film will bend your mind in the best way).

Non-attachment...what is it now, IV? V?

It's like a blues song!

I woke up this mornin'....

with gluteus medii that felt like big swollen pieces of plastic. Sensation extended around back, into the gluteus max and echoing into the low back (read: psoas) and of course around front, electricity operating into the pelvic bowl.

I felt this all the way through sun salutations, particularly intensely in Virabhadrasanas and Utkatasanas, and it actually limited my expression of Trikonasana and needed to be sat down and listened to, after Parivrtta Parsvakonasana. I did Prasarita A, didn't like it, and called it a practice.

My wrists are happier than they have been, but they're not "psyched", all hamstrings are somewhat sore in the near end of the muscle (that is, near the attachments), and the musculature which I refer to as the "ring of stress" (largely, glutes, low abs and iliopsoas) is pure and simple agony.

Now, I have been told that backbending-development will gradually challenge some of my most relished poses. This does not seem to be true; my inversions remain stout and my arm balances remain instantaneous. My twists, however, are vanishing again, each time I increase my backwardsbending regimen.

To the degree that my hips are transforming into advanced-backbender's-hips, they are doing so in a way that Karen properly named "arthritic." It doesn't feel good, I don't like it, and I don't trust that it's actually GOOD for me.

As teacher, I cannot serve myself as student, through this. I don't know how to. I can't accurately tell myself what feels good, what to work through, what to stop doing, what to keep doing.

Certain things seem to be true:

1) The need (attachment)to stand-up-and-drop-back in order to "get Second" is doing me harm on the physical, emotional, and psychological levels. This must end.

2) I like led Second (even if it's "Intro to") better than trying to figure out "what my practice is."

3) I am in the position, in solitary practice, of trying to wrangle with the tradition at the same time as finding that my teacher (me) doesn't quite know how to guide me into the very movement which is at the transitional point of said practice.

Here's what I can see following from this:

1) As teacher, I need to figure out how to assist/teach backwardsbending of the order of which I want to commit as student. Will this happen in Minnesota?

2) As student, I need to leave off all pressure to stand up/drop back. That must go, in toto. EVERY formula and method I have tried, has had results that I don't want (sore hips, sore wrists, emotional frustration, psychological confusion, and often ALL of those at once).

3) What then do I do for "Ashtanga practice"? The tradition says TWO things here, things which CAN NOT be resolved:
a) you go up to the pose you cannot do (either Kapo, or the dropback itself).
BUT
b) your teacher then assists you with said pose.

That second bit is, at least reliably, and with experience, IMPOSSIBLE here.

As far as ACHIEVEMENT goes, I CANNOT help myself with this.

This leads to:

4) If I cannot help myself healthily (on any level) to ACHIEVE said pose, can I help myself healthily to DETACH from said pose?


There are further questions here:

What do I do with Second, while I work with non-attachment? What do I do with asana practice in general? I am perfectly willing to do (or at least attempt) Kapotasana whenever, I don't dislike the pose, I dislike how working AVIDLY toward it, makes my hips feel and mind work. Same with dropping back and standing up: sure, that would probably be cool to do, but it's the NEED to do it that drives me crazy.

"Simply apply ahimsa."

No, that doesn't work in as simple a way as that sentence implies.

"Simple" ahimsa when I DON'T KNOW what I'm DOING but I DO know what I "NEED" to do, is NOT simple. Is this kind of hip displeasure PROGRESS? Who can say? How will I know? Do I turn it up, or back it off? Is it "pain" or is it simply "quite intense sensation" (which notably, cuts my practice short)?

Who is in my body, to share my experience first-hand? NO ONE.
Who sees my practice regularly, to advise? NO ONE.
How experienced with dropbacks is my teacher? HE/I HAS/HAVE NEVER DONE ONE.

What are the chances we will go into this with wisdom and ahimsa?


So then.


What form will this non-attachment take?
Some ideas:

1) Include at least one practice a week where you do the poses the tradition currently is not permitting you. Disempower the "thou shalt not" so that you can respect it the rest of the week.

2) Put all backbending emphasis into the wheel press-up and abandon all other funky variations.

3) As near-impossible as it sounds, find a teacher who KNOWS these movements and would be willing to teach them to you. Put this in the box of wishes.

Random measurements and my backbend assistant.

Two days ago an inflatable ball which I'd ordered from Ebay, arrived. It's supposedly about 22 inches (55 cm) in diameter but I think it's more like 18-20.

I have figured out two ways to use it effectively:

1) Lay over it and do, essentially, a supported Laghuvajrasana. Thighs lean well back, hands can easily reach meaty section of calves. To intensify, bring prayer hands overhead. Interesting pullings-open in the vertical abs, and just eeking into the pelvic bowl. We'll take it.

2) Put a couch cushion or two UNDER it, to make it taller, and arch back toward something (the couch, the wall), press hands flat against this something, and then PRESS the arms STRAIGHT. This I very much like. I can feel the lumbar not only lengthening, but really stretching OUT of the sacral area (and bringing the abs with it), perhaps moving eventually toward a dorsal hinge as completely out of this world as this one. All of the sensations are good, but very, very intense. Today I only held this for five breaths and had to let it go.

I think I know how flexible backbenders must feel when they hit the strength section of Intermediate. If my back, pretty much at will, were able to drop into Kapo, then Pincha Mayurasana would be SICK HARD to stabilize. It would take phenomenal proprioception of the core musculature, to stick a forearm stand, especially one jumped into.

Same with Mayurasana, maybe more so. When I hold that pose, I just take a massive uddiyana bandha and ask my spinal flexors to impersonate steel cable, and BOO-YAH, Mayurasana. But if my spine was a slinky, and needed to be TRAINED to impersonate said cable, that pose would be, to put it lightly, annoying.

For some reason, I took some random body measurements with a yardstick (I think it was a recent discussion about the benefits of short legs). I'll translate the inches into centimenters, for the world audience.

Here, roughly, are some stats about how Patrick is made (I'm 5'11, aka 177cm or so).

It's around 38 inches (95 cm) from the soles of my feet to the top of the greater trochanters.

It's something like 21 inches (52.5 cm) from my greater trochanters to my collarbones.

It's about 30 inches (75 cm) from the top of the humerus to the fingertips.

Less anxiety, more focus, please.

Primary to Supta Kurmasana, where I overcranked the right trap/pec/neck trying to get deeper in the pose, because apparently "advanced" practitioners can bind the feet beyond the head. Blah. I tried not to listen to that, but I couldn't shut it off, so predictably I overcranked the pose. That's it. I'm not listening to ANYONE anymore about who's how advanced and who does what. Never again until I can get clean of this whole nonsense about "advanced" and such.

I didn't backbend (in wheels, anyway) because even in bridges, I could feel the buildup of that very intense and somewhat traumatic "belly ripping" that happens just inside and just below the iliac crests in the front hips. I just wasn't down for it.

The practice was all about solitude and emotional states. Many of them are.

Here are the various advices and adjustments that I was given in SF during my near-month of Mysore practice:

1) A couple forward-fold intensifying adjustments in Padangusthasana.
2) Some advice about most beneficial shoulder rotation in Parsvakonasana.
3) The core Prasarita C "hands down" adjustment.
4) The core "foot-cup" adjustment in Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana. Advice about leaving out the "two hands on foot" version; that's Trivikrmasana and only for students who can do it.
5) Squishes in Tiriang Mukha Paschimo, to keep the thigh down and the spine centered.
6) A brilliant anatomical breakdown of Marichyasana C, about keeping the extended foot upright and how the hip works and why to press the bent knee "outward."
7) ONE, count them, ONE hookup in Marichyasana D.
8) ONE "pick the heels up" adjustment in Supta Kurmasana.
9) One GIGANTIC Baddha Konasana squish, which changed that pose forever, for me. THAT is my favorite adjustment from my time in that city.
10) Advice about hands being on the SIDES of the feet in Upavistha Konasana, not on the big toes.
11) Advice that there's vinyasa between Ubhaya Padangusthasana and Urdhva Mukha Paschimo. I BELIEVE there was a press-in adjustment in Urdhva Mukha.
12) Daily assisted drop-backs, which I never, in my time there, learned to do solo.
13) Assisted post-backbending handstands, which were cool.
14) Advice to keep the hands and feet about 30 degreees off the floor, in Uttana Padasana.

That's everything I can remember. I did full Primary there, from DAY ONE. To this day, I've never been given a pose, not by ANYONE.

Four years of Primary series, most of the last two years of it, solo. And I mean COMPLETELY solo. I still don't dropback-and-standup.

I think it makes sense to do Intermediate's backbends in order to learn how to drop and stand, but it doesn't seem to be coming, but then, what would I know? I've never stood-and-dropped unassisted in my whole life, not even when I was 7.

What, again, is the POINT of ashtanga asana practice, again?

To see God everywhere? Yes? To grok the niyamas, grow the eight-limbed tree, yes?

I KNOW that I have the capability to drop-and-stand. I can FEEL it but I can't seem to ACCESS it.

What is the existential point of this solitude, when obviously a crowded room and a teacher's assistance would help me to access my still-substantial NATIVE TALENT for this asana practice?

Is it about talent, or about God? Are those opposites? Can one access the latter by purposely DEFERRING the former?

WHAT is the EXACT LESSON to be learned here?

FOR WHAT, precisely, do I willingly sit at the door when I KNOW I'm familiar and able with what awaits in the room?

Obviously, in asana terms, it is the DOOR which matters. But OUTSIDE asana terms, what is this FOR? Patience? I wrote a dissertation; that taught me things about patience that I doubt this backbending patience session will top.

Surrender? Surrender of what I know I'm able to do? Surrender precisely of my substantial POWER, in order to work exactly on FEAR and WEAKNESS? And further, to do so in an emotional environment which is ADDITIONALLY WEAKENING?

Could THAT be the point?

The voice changes, now I sit and listen:

Walking around, head down, with hands bound, holds NO FEAR for you.
Putting a foot behind your head holds NO FEAR for you.
Doing half a dozen various headstands holds virtually NO FEAR for you.
Five big power moves in a row summons, for you, NO WEAKNESS and NO FEAR.

Do you see it now?

THIS is your fear-and-weakness workshop. It's likely to be a LONG TIME before you see ANOTHER ONE.

This fear and terror and weakness and doubt session is not an OBSTACLE but a BLESSING.

It is here BECAUSE of your power, not DESPITE it.

ENJOY IT. That's WHY it is HERE.

Jury Duty

About a month ago, I got a summons to be part of a jury pool. I was really hoping, in 5 pm calls daily, that this week would pass me by. Alas, the call came Wednesday night, to show up at 8 am on Thursday morning.

I didn't want to go to jury duty, as you can probably guess, because I don't realy, on a certain level "believe" in the American justice system (see below for a crystal-clear example of how and why) and now I REALLY don't want to go again, but I know how to get out of these things, as well. Strategies!

OK: I showed up at 8, and security confiscated the bottle opener on my key ring, which means I had to move the keys to one of the studios where I teach. Hell knows what they think I'd get away with, with a bottle opener.

I sat with about 35 other people in a big room and we filled out a form about if we had relatives in law enforcement, if we'd been victims of a crime, sat on a jury before, blah blah blah. Then we sat down til 10, and I read all about French cinema on the margins (my drive to research is, obviously, unstoppable. Hah!).

Then we were all, all 40 of us, led into a criminal court, where two white male guys were playing prosecution and one white woman was playing defense, over the case of a homeless, drug-using black man who had allegedly committed battery and attempted robbery.

I was not called in the first group of 14, and not in the second group of 14, but I was called in the final group of 5. They needed 14 people total, and the attorneys asked questions, figuring out whom they wanted to seat, and whom they did not. They took 5 of the first 14, 8 of the second 14, and then the final 1 of the five of us in the third round.

I knew, once I heard the details of the case-to-be, that I did NOT want to be part of a white system persecuting a homeless black guy for being down on his luck, a condition which the system in which we live ACTIVELY encourages.

So I told the defense attorney, when asked, that I wasn't comfortable with being exposed to the violence implicit in "battery," but that I would be glad to serve, since I was asked. She nodded, thanked me for my honesty, and I KNEW that I'd gotten out, right then.

On my "profession" on the form, I'd put "yoga teacher," since that, true to life, is currently PRECISELY what I do for money. One of the prosecuting attorneys read that with a barely-covered sneer, and I simply nodded, "Yes, that's true, that's what I do."

The Lion wanted to pounce on him and tear him into pieces, but I kept the Lion on a short leash. We are being cunning and subversive now: chill!

The judge announced that one of the five of us was going to be the 14 member of the jury, and then said, "We hope that we never see the rest of you again!" with a smile, which was on the one hand nice, but on the other, was a sly, subtle indictment of our various unsuitabilities. Thanks, justice system!

People freaked me the hell out: when told that drug use was involved, about half a dozen people did not hesitate to parrot Nancy Reagan and say that drug use "always" leads to worse things, and that it leads to violence and such. Maybe they were just saying that to get off the panel. Let's hope so.

One does not, as we know, repay ignorance with ignorance; that never reduces the key problem. As ignorant as it was of this guy to attack someone for money or chemicals or relief or whatever, it is NO less ignorant to have "justice" done by having him...what? Imprisoned? Given community service?

Justice? How? Not to be a communist, but wouldn't REAL justice be done by alleviating the very CONDITIONS of the ignorance which PRODUCE these situations?

Rant cut short here on purpose. Anyway: I know now that I never, EVER want to sit on any jury for anything, EVER, and I know how to get out of it. Put down "yoga teacher," look all hippie, and deny any interest in violence (or, in a civil suit, in money and/or greed).

I have survived my encounter with America. Back to my margins I go. Ahhhh.

That's my story! In about a month, they'll send me $15 for doing this.

Formula for amazement: Breathe first, move second.

I was really not in the mood to practice today. I woke up with stiff crankiness in the hip flexors, and tended the garden, moved around, tried to get it to loosen up, but those muscles are just in a cranky mood. But, guilt about not practicing (and doing my backbends, which I swore to commit) was building up, and it was going to get to be a really stupid day if I let that continue.

So I rolled out the mat inside (outside is harder on the wrists, less flat, more dangerous) and had at it, thinking "hip flexors, attention to hip flexors, respect limits, feel them out, ask them to relax" over and over. A hip flexor mantra, sort of.

Sun salutations were suprisingly welcome: I spent the whole inhale coming "up" and the whole exhale moving "down," as called for. I held chaturanga the length of the exhale. By the mid-B's, I realized that this was going to be a breathing practice, it was really going to be a lesson about "breathe first, move second." Brilliant, that sounds like fun, let's see how it goes.

Parivrtta Parsvakonasana was challenging; it went right to the hip flexors, even though I've been regularly able to get the low hand to the floor, by the foot, now. During the winter, I often had to remain with hands pressed together.

There are hamstring warning lights going off in the Prasaritas; left hammie is warning me to engage the quads before I over-crank the muscle and/or microtear the attachment. So be it.

Breath led me to a nice, clean Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana. Similarly, the breath cues me to relax into Paschimottanasana. I made CERTAIN to do vinyasa on breath pace. The big discovery here is that one can DEFER tiredness in the late Marichyasanas, simply by inhaling up, jumping back, and GETTING ON WITH IT. I tried to enter poses as quickly as possible (note: AS POSSIBLE), to keep the breath streamlining the practice. Mari's C and D both took me two inhale-exhale rounds, because I prefer to bind on the exhale. I jumped through and into poses like Tiriang Mukha Paschimo and Janu Sirsasana's A and B and Mari A.

Jumps back were easy but still with foot contact; the only ones I really got snagged on the mat while doing were the final one from Navasana and, for some reason, the one from Supta Konasana. Whatever, that won't cost me enlightenment.

Key to Supta Kurmasana: bind it, invite the ankles to sit on top of the head, and then RELAX. Mellow, but deep, breathing here, makes the exit less strenous (but no less athletic) and it KEEPS one from being OUT of BREATH for Garbha Pindasana.

I had, with the exception of the fifth Navasana, suprising energy for not wanting to have practiced. I like suprises like that.

I did Primary and Intermediate up to Kapo: that is really settling in now as my "regular practice." I took three full deep breaths between EACH Intermediate pose, as the vinyasa itself wasn't quite enough to "erase" the pose before, and I worked each up-dog, pointing the feet, asking the ribs to arc up, the tailbone to tuck.

Laghuvajrasana: I can keep my arms straight if I put my hands on my calves. This makes coming up harder, but not impossible. Remember to INHALE and come up; the inhale might want to stop halfway up, from effort. DON'T LET IT DO THAT. Breathing makes the ascent EASY.

Kapotasana: I took Ustrasana again, to enter Kapo, and actively visualized the tailbone moving UNDER, like a big red arrow of energy, and the ribs moving UP and AWAY, another big arrow. It looked like plate tectonics, and what was even cooler, was that as I moved my hands to my chest and then my third eye, the backbend FELT like plate tectonics! I felt the lumbar spine DEEPLY increase in bending, and the abdomen ACTUALLY lengthen--sweet!

But then I dropped back, and shouldn't have, and the hip flexors freaked out in fear, and my whole front-outer hips turned to stone, and the lower back got sore, and I descended to Supta Virasana, which I've tried to get myself not to do. Oh well; the pre-drop-back sensations were so cool!

Nonetheless, I had a totally satisfactory vinyasa after that, and then:

Urdhva Dhanurasana: I took three of these, and immediately had intense sensation in the hip flexors, and even the low abs and maybe as deep as the psoas, but the lower back, even after the Kapo incident, felt big and JUICY. Arms straight but not next to the ears, three times (and I didn't want to do the third one, but made myself do it). Some ability to rock back and forth, but I didn't walk the hands in. The wrists did not hurt (thanks again, Matthew Sweeney!).

Then I came down and rested for a dozen breaths and then took three MORE wheels; arms straight, closer to the ears now, and even MORE sensation, and DEEPER in the hip flexors, definitely some psoas activation. It's the kind of front body opening, the depth of which makes you feel like you might get ILL if you keep chasing it. That, for me, cues PSOAS. But at the same time, and just like the Kapo, there was this gigantic bend in the lumbar, and also, particularly on my sixth wheel, intense sensation behind the ribs about two-three inches under my shoulder blades--that's new! It was the same "plate tectonics": tailbone UNDER, UNDER, UNDER, ribs UP, UP, AWAY. Like two arcs moving in opposite directions, which form a circle of light.

It was super intense. I had to chill on the mat for a while after that, and again, I made absolutely certain to breathe as deeply as I could, while all that backwardsbending went down. It definitely helps.

Then I took a shot at a standing hang-back, and again, the deep rounding of the lumbar showed up, and again, that under-rib sensation in the thoracic, and I could DEFINITELY see the edge of the mat, a little more than that, even. Totally beyond peripheral vision. Very nice.

I didn't drop back, only because the low belly and mid-spine were SO full of sensation as it was. It's like when Kirk asks Mr. Scott for more power and Scottie tells him that he's "givin'er all she's got, Cap'n!" When that massive quotient of sensation lessens, but the BEND retains, then it will be dropback central. At least that's the intention I'm setting.

I took a full closing series: 25 breaths in Sarvangasana and Sirsasana, 8 breaths in everything else, 10 breaths in each closing Padmasana (12 in Uthpluthi; this practice had kicked my butt).

It was pretty fabulous. I wonder if it'll repeat tomorrow.