"Welcome to Mari D!"

This past weeks yoga classes have been varied and lovely. I was taught Sivananda by my close friend K on Sunday at her home, it invloved her chanting prayers to begin then a real delicate practice, beginning with inversions but then carrying on working with all the different posture groups in turn, a bit like the BWY classes I'm used to. Really enjoyed it and great being taught by a friend too :)

I did my normal teaching practice on Monday but adjusting my fellow TT, which worked out nicely and I'm beginning to feel more comfortable being a bit more physical and it was nice to get some good constructive feedback. I followed this with a great energetic Mysore practice albeit with minimal revelation!

I practiced some hot yoga Wed and Friday, taking a break from Thursday's led ashtanga class to catch up with friends, nice break. Sat was my BWY course day, learning about basic breathing technicques - sounds tedious but actually very interesting!

But the best bit about my weekend was a trip to see a recently authorised ashtanga teacher, Shelley Osman, based in Essex. She's a buddhist too and a healer and just an amazing lady. There were just 6 of us in a room in her home, but it was lovely and really worked as a yoga space and very intimate. She teaches in the style of the old yogis where you are given postures when she feels you are ready, so no one in the room completed the series, but most got to Mari d then into finishing. Due to my knee issues I've stayed away from attempting any padmasana work since June last year. When I got to the seated postures I asked her advice and told her the problem and she asked I wanted to look at the postures together. She showed me a different way of getting my leg into padmasana which didn't involve the knee at all. What a difference it made. She had me binding in ardha baddha, mari b and believe it or not mari d was almost there too!

I was shocked that there was no pain in the knee and I kinda had a bit of an out of body experience being twisted completely into postures I have NEVER attempted before due to perceived knee issues. I was scared to death that my knee would just break in these bound postures, but just by breathing through it I relaxed, the fear disappeared and I managed to get through them. I'm not saying there was no pain elsewhere mind you, my ankles were bloody killing me!! I don't think I've ever had that much pain in my ankle before, (and I could hardly do a jump back after) but it was worth it! She had me do up to navasana then into finishing (thank god - i was shattered by this point). It still took 1.5 hrs. But Shelley explained that I needed to work on the maris, esp the padmasana ones and that should be my focus so my hips are open enough to do the rest of the practice. Even though I couldn't bind on one side in mari d she showed me a tip where you should hold your knee and let it fall in towards the other and just hug the knee whilst twisting as much as you can. But the most lovely tip Shelley gave me was that I just need to give my body "time and love"...