Back to it

Back to Mysore today. Nice and toasty in there, as Volleyball Guy cranked the heat up. The British Director and The Other Dave were coming in just as I arrived, quickly followed by Renaissance Man and The Cat. Sanskrit Scholar showed up a little later, along with a few other folks.

Practice was good. I felt a little distracted to be practicing in a group, but not too bad. Of course, it was great getting adjustments from Volleyball Guy again. My hamstrings felt good enough to get my feet up off the floor in kurmasana, and supta kurmasana is hanging in there--bind getting tighter and tighter, soles together. Hmmm...just a little bit deeper to get the crossed feet... Anyhow, can't complain.

Volleyball Guy sandbagged me on baddha konasana (one on each thigh and two on my back) and what used to be searing pain as I put my head on the floor is now just intense pain. LOL! Just kidding. I don't know how this works, but once I am not afraid, the pain just becomes a feeling and it isn't so...well, painful.

After setu bandhasana, I went on to my little bit of second--through ustrasana--before urdhva dhanurasana. After urdhva dhanurasana, Volleyball Guy spotted me on dropbacks. Once that was done, I took a moment to savor the pukey feeling of my nervous system being stressed. Ahhhh! Such a lovely feeling. I haven't had it for a while. Seriously, I actually do have good associations with the seeing-stars-feeling-pukey feeling. The most intensely I've ever experienced it was when learning heavy squats and deadlifts. I could also get it from really hard climbing. And when I was first learning primary.

Of course, back in the day, I didn't have any fancy yoga way of understanding it ;-) When it happened from lifting, I called my brother, who was a personal trainer and gym manager, and he told me it was a normal reaction of the nervous system, a response to a new level of physical stress. "How far should I push it?" I asked him. "Well," he said, "Definitely don't puke on the equipment." This is not inconsistent with the messaging of rock climbers. In that environment, though, the word is: Don't puke on the belay ledge.

This morning, anyhow, wasn't quite so dramatic as all that. It was just that crispy, slightly burnt feeling of exertion. Which I love. I thought a bit about how we learn to be more efficient in our practices: how we smooth them and work out the kinks and learn the places where we need to be patient, where we need to pay a little more attention and breathe. We adjust, physically (and mentally), to the stressors. So this morning was a great bit of fun, to throw in the new poses. Something to mess practice all up again ;-)

Afterwards, I couldn't resist asking Volleyball Guy about what I'd done. As I'm sure I've mentioned a million times, he is not a traditionalist. So it's kind of dopey for me to ask. But apparently I am a traditionalist, because I wanted to check and make sure that what I was doing was okay.

I asked him if adding the poses on was alright, or if I should get real and knock it off. He grabbed my shoulders and said, "Yes, you should do it. I'm proud of you!" LOL! He cracks me up. He acted like he'd been waiting for me to just go ahead and do it.

Well alrighty then.