Home practice 8/10/06

Home practice with Sharath's CD, because I felt like moving along at a good pace. Kept the focus on quad engagement, which really seems to be doing the trick, hamstring-pain-wise.

After backbends, played with putting my feet behind my head instead of paschimottanasana. What fun! Wasn't as heated up as yesterday morning, so I couldn't straighten my back up once my leg was behind my head. Persistance, though, will do the trick. And as I said, it's such fun that it doesn't seem like work at all.

Savasana with Simon and Garfunkel on the iPod. Relaxed, lying in the sunshine of the yoga room, I had, suddenly, the strongest sense of uddiyana bandha that I've ever felt. Very cool. Interesting when these things happen, because I can chase the feeling (make a vow to consciously reproduce it in practice), or I can set it in the back of my consciousness, like a koan, and trust that it is developing. I guess this circles around to the thoughts I've been having lately about willfulness and the role it does, or does not, play in my practice. Those thoughts, too, though, have to be left alone a bit. They remind me of the seeds I planted in the front yard on Sunday. Left alone, they'll sprout. (And then, if it's anything like the seeds I planted two weeks ago, the rabbits will come and eat them one morning. LOL!)