Two-fer

This morning, after a lovely ardha baddha padmottanasana on the right side, I moved on to my left side and discovered something new. Pain in my left knee. Suddenly I remembered feeling a little sore in the left knee yesterday after practice. Nothing too bad. Felt pretty normal. Apparently it was a little more significant than I realized. So ardha baddha tipped me off. I guess ardha baddha is a "tester" pose. Like the canary in the mine shaft.

Okay, so I skipped ardha baddha on the left, then went on. Decided to see if it'd feel better in ardha baddha padma paschimottanasana. Nope. Alrighty, then. Modifications for all lotus poses on the left. I guess I did learn something when I injured the right knee. I was in denial about that for days and days, trying all kinds of ways to avoid modifications. For the left side, I'll just modify until I heal. This is so much less dramatic than the last time around.

At the end of practice, I told The Cop, "I'm having a problem with my left knee."

"Is that the one you hurt before?" he asked.

"No, that was my right knee. It's good it's my left, because that means this isn't a recurring injury."

"It's a recurring injury," he said. "It just doesn't always happen on the same side."

I guess he didn't realize we were having the "this-isn't-such-a-bad-thing-in-fact-we-can-be-happy-it's-not-my-right-knee" conversation. A conversation in which the term "recurring" does not...well, recur.

My month of doing ustrasana and dhanurasana instead of urdhva dhanurasana is up. So I gave urdhva dhanurasana a go this morning. I'm hoping that the sore knee is to blame for how crappy this morning's urdhva ds were. Yeah, yeah...it's the injury.

I guess it is now time for me to come to grips with the fact that I am a forward bender by nature, and that backbending is going to be a long haul. Any suggestions folks may have for good reading re: the mechanics of backbends? *Sigh* Isn't this Ashtanga stuff supposed to be easy? ;-)