V Guy: MIA

Wondered for a moment this morning if I should go to Mysore practice. I was coughing a bit and we stayed out late last night for a cop function (they really do banquet on rubbery chicken, BTW).

So off I go to Volleyball Guy's, because I don't want to decide not to go. Volleyball Guy, still ensconced in teacher training, was not there. Just Chanting Man, his daughter The Cat, and me.

A nice, quiet, focused practice. Chanting Man was kind enough to offer a few adjustments, most notably in the forward bending portion of samakonasana and in prasarita C. When you are at Volleyball Guy's, you almost invariably get adjustments in those two poses. So Chanting Man kept up the tradition today. He adjusted differently than Volleyball Guy, though. Volleyball Guy tends to have more energy pressing downward in samakonasana, whereas Chanting Man was primarily pushing me forward. I understand that you want both energies (downward and forward) in that adjustment, but they emphasize it differently. I found myself simultaneously terrified and curious during the adjustment. Everything turned out just fine, but once again I am reminded how much I rely on Volleyball Guy's familiar adjustments, and how I trust them.

Handstands between navasana rocked today. I am just kicking up, sticking the pose, and then I'm able to curl my knees in and get about halfway down before gravity takes over again. This is a perfect example of just practicing until suddenly you can do it. I love doing handstands, but never thought about them with any particular ambition. So it's been a very mellow learning curve.

Chanting Man spotted me thrashing around in supta kurmasana--I could feel my spine with my fingertips and was curious about how far apart they were. He came over and pushed my hands just a teeny bit closer, and I had the bind. So I'll go with the hand bind (versus the foot crossing) for a while and see where that goes.

Usually I knock off at supta kurmasana, but it's been two weeks since I went to led primary, and I was really missing the whole series. So I carried on. I managed to get one arm through on garbha pindasana. This has never happened before and I was quite surprised. Am I supposed to keep one arm all the way through and then work on trying to get the other, or back off and try to get both halfway through, I wonder? Calling Volleyball Guy. Time to quit teaching those other people and get back to Mysore practice. Alternatively, I suppose I could try to learn to do a one-armed kukkutasana and just pretend it's my special trick. As if.

Backbends were the ustrasana/dhanurasana combo. And finishing poses were truncated because I have early meetings at work. Which means I ought to quit writing now.