Thursday, May 5, 2011

Heading to the weekend

Last night was another early night by TT standards. We finished up our Anatomy lecture at 11:30pm and then were free to go. A lot of peops chose to stay up studying the dialogue but I hit the sack and enjoyed a good 7 hours sleep. Still have this cold hanging around and so thats not making me feel the best so I'm making the most of our chance to catch up on sleep while I can.

Bikram is away in Japan at the moment hence no Bollywood movies. He is teaching some classes at a studio there and doing some lectures as a way to help out with the disaster relief over there. For all the critics and bad media who say he is all about making money, he does seem to be very generous in offering his time and money to help where needed and is always helping people network etc to get things done.

This morning we had Emmy again, and our group was on line 1 right in front of the mirrors. I haven't been able to see myself in the mirrors for days so was interested to see if my postures looked how I felt they were.

Half moon was pretty crap but my upper back has been really tight and sore for days so I didn't expect much change in that posture. My bow has deepened which I am thrilled about as I feel that I have been stuck and not progressed in that posture for ages. For the past few days I have felt like my back has opened up a lot more so it was interesting to see just how far I could get my chest down and really feel the back bend in Bow. My Camel also feels a lot deeper and though I may not be getting my back bend any deeper I feel like I am def able to push my hips further forward.

Triangle. Ugh. I could feel that my hips haven't been coming down enough in the set up even without being able to see myself. The carpet is really slippery when you're sweating heaps and for some reason my legs just don't feel strong enough, though at home it was one of my fav postures because I finally had gained the strength and my hips had opened up enough to find that "sweet" spot that makes the posture almost easy. Note: ALMOST :-). Anyway, all of this was confirmed when I could see in the mirror. Oh dear. My hips were miles up and my knee far too far over my toes. I hope its just a sign of other things changing and it will all come back into line but I'll have to be really conscious to make sure that sitting up too high doesn't becomes a habit.

Emmy stressed the importance of Frequency, and practicsing with Precsion and Intent. She said if you're just going through the motions and doing the postures the wrong way you aren't going to get any benefits. Uh oh...............guilty as charged on some days :-(

Her thoughts about yoga differ from Bikram's in that she believes you should practice with mindfulness and be aware of everthing that is going on in your body, whereas Bikram likes to distract you with humour so that you forget how painful and torturous it all is. I think I like a bit of both depending on my mood. Some days I am focused and have a rock star class and others I just want to get the hell out of there so are thankful for any kind of distraction. Unfortunately lately the later has been more true for me, but I must admit, being in front of the mirrors today made a big difference. You can feel the energy is more focused up there. The further towards the back of the room you constantly have people walking past leaving the room etc and it really does effect the energy and flow.

Anyway, so tonight we had Rajashree and I had my best class to date! Sheesh it only took 3 bloody weeks to happen, but hey it happened! I nailed every postue, only fell out of Bow at the end of the L side first set and charged through the rest. There is no rhyme or reason, I wasn't feeling particularly strong or motivated, but once I got in there I just seemed to hit my stride and away I went. Mmmmm.... I love yoga again :-) So on that note I think I'll sign off for the day.