The weekend...

I had a rest on Friday after a tiring week and resumed practice on Saturday with MF. We worked on opening the hips for padmasana. It bloody killed. He said that the hips were funny things and that most of the time if someone can get their knees to the ground in baddhakonasana it is a sign that their hips are open, but sometimes there are some strange exceptions....like me! My knees are almost their in BK, but in padmasana their somewhere near my ears! It looks like I've never practice yoga when I try to sit in padmasana! Goddamn posture... I'd rather sit in siddasana anyhow ;o)

The last time I practiced with MF I think it was late Jan or early Feb, and I can't remeber whether practicign with him came before hot yoga or after (I'm sure if I could be bothered to look through my dates I'd be able to find out.. but I can't be bothered...) anyway, my point is that I didn't find it as challenging as the first time, I thought I was never going to walk again after the first time, this time it was challenging but less, and I think that my hot yoga practice and just trying to get through the heat has given me that edge in my other practice that gets me through without much sweat (excuse the pun..!).

So today I decided to go back to SM and do their Mysore class with a couple of teachers I didn't know.. Turns out one of the guys I recognised from Lino Miele, B, who I remembered as being sooo happy about Lino's tips for dropping back unassisted he just kept doing it!! The other guy P, wasn't so familiar, but it turned out to be a great practice with loads of tips and assists as the class was about 4 people! I actually had the longest practice ever at a fantastic 2 hours 10 minutes!! I loved it! I concentrated on having a longer breath and staying in the postures longer until I felt the benefits, the openings, the stretches. Afterwards a lady came to give a talk on the Yoga Sutras, Kailish Mistry. It was only an introduction to the sutras and sanskrit in general, but it was a good start. We did some chanting too, but unfortunately not the sutras, and I think it may become a regular class, a bit like a book club, but everyone just bringing their ideas to the table about different parts of the sutras.

Unfortunately a lot of what she was saying about the history of yoga didn't sit well with me, particularly since reading Mark Singleton's 'Yoga Body', however, that aside I think a Patanjali book club would be quite useful!