Winter practice

Home practice today. The Cop is kind and turned the heat up when he got up, about 20 minutes before me, so the house was nice and toasty. We had a bunch of paperwork to look after this morning--a few last details that need to be addressed for the new house, so by the time he left, I was feeling a little scattered. Not really focused for practice.

So I turned the heat up even more and put on Sharath's CD. If I couldn't take myself through practice, I figured Sharath could. And what I learned this morning is that I tend to turn the end of each sitting pose into the start of the jumpback. Sharath counts so that you finish the posture on the fifth breath, then inhale back up to sitting, exhale, then inhale to start the jumpback, exhale to chaturanga. Left to my own devices, I tend to inhale back to sitting/start the jumpback, exhale to chaturanga. No exhale/inhale in the middle.

I tried to pay attention to the way Sharath was counting the breaths, even though I spaced out and did the transitions my usual way a few times. I figure I'll keep this in the back of my mind tomorrow at Volleyball Guy's and see if I can make some adjustments. I suspect that extra exhale/inhale would give me more energy for pulling up for the jumpback.

So I'll see how it goes tomorrow, and perhaps use Sharath's CD for home practice for a bit--let him teach me a thing or two.

In other news, the sleeping-without-curling-up-to-see-if-that-relaxes-my-hamstrings experiment has been declared a success. These days, my hamstrings feel comfy after just one or two suryas. Now I'm going to see if I can relax my upper back more as I sleep. Sleep Your Way To Better Backbends. I think I have a winner there. It's weird, to think I have to try to relax as I sleep, but there you have it. I'm a tight sleeper, I guess.