Having had a nice early night last night, I was up for an early morning practice. Hit the mat at 8am. I have a terrible cold now so thought it would ease that, but I think that the ujjayi breathing has made my nose really hurt, like I've strained it! Boooo... I was reading in bed 'The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace' just before practice and I had the pain in my back which I get if I 'lie in', so that spurred me on...
Anyway, decided to practice the Dynamic Yoga Primer series today, as I should be practicing that at least twice a week in order to teach it. It was a welcomed change to the mostly full practices I've done this week. The surys were dreadful though, I could hardly touch the floor and felt like I was bending at the waist rather than the hips. I did no jump backs/throughs as although I was nice and warm, my joints weren't warm enough and felt cracky. My balance was off during the standing sequence, I did utthita hasta padangustasana with my knee bent as I just couldn't be bothered to straighten my leg today. My seated postures were OK - Janu A which I did a couple of times I can now feel the benefits of the 'self adjustment' tip from Brian Cooper - must have another read of that book and pick up some more - they work, pulled the hip and knee right back, so my thigh was perdendicular to my outstreched leg, and the whole thing worked and I could feel the stretch right through my side, as is meant to be. Been practicing that for 3 years now and have never felt that stretch, just shows you...
Navasana was all right - tried pointing the toes, tried flexing the heels, tried a combination of the two, that worked, got straight legs for a couple of seconds in my final boat, brilliant news!
Nearly left it there, but did the beginner's backbend sequence; arms stretched out to start, then behind the hpis pushing the hips forward, then up into full dhanurasana. Nearly left it there again, but somemthing made me have another go up into full bridge, brought my hands closer to my feet this time, and felt the benefit.
Again, nearly left it there, thought about my 'ladies holiday', but thought 'get up there', so catapulted myself into salamba sarvangasana, and did 8 counts to all variations. Nearly left it there for reasons above, but then thought '**** it, get up into sirsasana you fool, you'll feel better and it'll make you look younge'r, so I did. And it was good, I pushed my feet towards the sky and made a concerted effort to press my forearms down into the ground and as i result i felt no tension in my lower back at all, it felt more balanaced and i stayed for twenty breaths, I then piked down, stayed with legs horizontal to floor for about 4 seconds then came crashing down. Balasana, padmasana, rest...
Having been so surprised by Friday's adjustment in bhujapi, I gave that a go after savasana, put head down without knocking myself out on floor (I think that was my main fear) then pulled feet towards tummy and there I was, no adjustment needed! This has given me extra confidence now to work towards jumping back, if I can go from Bhujapi to Bakasana, then one leg off at a time, I could start working towards the jump-back!!! It all comes together slowly!
All in all a good practice, albeit only an hour. Just to let you know though, got my tittibhasana bruises back - just what I need before I go on holiday!!! Aaargh!
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