Practicing Shakti

Today's Practice - Baron Baptiste

Time: 9:15am

Duration: 45 min

Guide: Baron Baptiste's Yoga Bootcamp, 75min flow

I have been sick.  3 weeks completely off the mat with Influenza B.  Much coughing, and the short duration of today's practice shows how much stamina I have lost.

It's odd how, when one returns from being ill, the poses aren't necessarily worse.  Many of them improve.  I led an open practice last weekend, and managed two difficult arm balances that I had never suspended entirely before.

Today's Practice - Baron Baptiste's Yoga Bootcamp

Time: 4:30 pm

Duration: 75 min

Guide: Baron Baptiste's Yoga Bootcamp

I'm still a bit sleep deprived from this weekend's traveling, and I saw it in this practice.  My endurance suffers...I think I'm a constitutional kapha dosha, which means I can usually push and push and push...but not when I'm short on rest.

Still, some progress.  Parivrtta Konasona is getting arms extended...the right a bit more than the left, but both are steady.  Vasisthasana was surprisingly stable on the left arm.

Dhanurasana - My shoulder/chest mobility is still limiting upward bow, but it's easier and easier to try.

Urdhva Padmasana in Savangasana - Shoulderstand with legs in lotus:  I got into this one easily today, and played around with balancing my knees on my extended hands.

Eka Pada Rajakapotasana - Was playing around with bending my back knee, and going to find it.  Didn't try a strap though.

30-60-90: This is getting stronger too.

Utrasana:  I'm starting to feel more chest/shoulder opening in this one...good because Iyengar specifically recommends it for people who stoop.  (Fighting computer crone's disease.)

Wheel - Urdhva Dhanurasana

Tried elbows down, Dwi Pada Viparita Dandasana

Parsvottanasana - Real hamstring relaxation in reverse namaste stretch today...you know when the muscles say, "oh, all right", and just oooze down.  So good.

Today's Practice - Yoga Shakti's Lunar Flow

Time: 6 pm

Duration: 1 hour

Guide: Shiva Rea's Yoga Shakti: Lunar Flow

I had a heavy work deadline yesterday, for which I was very anxious, with horrible abdominal cramping, so I didn't practice yesterday.  Although I felt better this morning, I was still very shaky, so I remembered that Shiva Rea has a restorative practice preprogrammed on the Yoga Shakti disc.

There's a prana warmup, that reminds me of spine and shoulder loosening stuff from modern dance class, some Chandra Namaskar (moon salutation) which also loosens the spine further.  There's twists with hamstring stretches (my legs are not quite straight here yet), hip openers.  I can get the arm lock on the right side, but not the left of the Marichyasana.  Inversions: I'm discovering that my Salamba Sarvangasana is crunching my lungs less - because my back muscles are working to not be so curved.  I tried doing the lotus legs (Pindasana in Sarvangasana Five), and am getting closer with that, too.

But boy howdy, after the following Uttana Padasana, my back was on fire...not in a bad way, but just startlingly alive...I did more rolling around that she did to relieve it.  After the following pranayama (alternate nostril breathing) and meditation, though, it feels fine.

My tummy does feel better post-practice, and I feel sort of dazed-relaxed...not quite in myself.  To bed early tonight, with yoga nidra.

Today's Practice - Yoga Shakti, Solar Flow 1

Time: 4 pm

Duration: 50 min

Notes:

Just had to crow:  Bhujapidasana Eight!  I'm getting much stronger, too - shoulders didn't give out at all, despite this being Shiva Rea.  Also more flexible, I can now grab below my deltoid on her favorite shoulder opener (I have never seen this anywhere else, so I don't know what its name is).  Didn't need a break on the ha kriya, and Tittibhasana is just waiting on my hamstrings to loosen up a bit more.

Amazing what consistency of practicing something does.

The Benefits of Distraction

From New York Magazine:

This is what the web-threatened punditry often fails to recognize: Focus is a paradox—it has distraction built into it. The two are symbiotic; they’re the systole and diastole of consciousness. Attention comes from the Latin “to stretch out” or “reach toward,” distraction from “to pull apart.” We need both. In their extreme forms, focus and attention may even circle back around and bleed into one other. Meyer says there’s a subset of Buddhists who believe that the most advanced monks become essentially “world-class multitaskers”—that all those years of meditation might actually speed up their mental processes enough to handle the kind of information overload the rest of us find crippling.

Fascinating.  I've never been diagnosed with ADD, but I thrive on multi-channel thought, and suspect myself somewhere significant on that spectrum.  As I spend more time in meditation (though it so far takes a guide to keep me there), I do find that I have more control over my distractibility...it's not easier to come back to the breath, or the work at hand, but practice does make the return trip more familiar.

Edit: Some nice quotes in the above article from Merlin Mann, who I followed for a bit at 43 Folders - 

“Priorities are like arms: If you have more than two of them, they’re probably make-believe”

“On the web, there’s a certain kind of encouragement to never ask yourself how much information you really need,”...My wife reminds me sometimes: ‘You have all the information you need to do something right now.’ ”

“Your mind is not getting the dopamine or the hugs that it needs to keep you focused on what you’re doing. And any time your work gets a little bit too hard or a little bit too boring, you allow it to catch on to something that’s more interesting to you.” (Mann himself started getting treated for ADD a year ago; he says it’s helped his focus quite a lot.)

“Where you allow your attention to go ultimately says more about you as a human being than anything that you put in your mission statement,” he continues. “It’s an indisputable receipt for your existence. And if you allow that to be squandered by other people who are as bored as you are, it’s gonna say a lot about who you are as a person.”

Today's Practice - Yoga Shakti, Solar Flow 2

Guide: Shiva Rea's Yoga Shakti, Solar Flow 2

Duration: officially 85 minutes, but I only managed 50 today

Notes:

Both pre-programmed series on this DVD, Solar Flow 1 and 2, sit right at my capability edge.  I was sick early this year, and lost a lot of stamina.  I've just got that basic stamina back, but Shiva is still very very challenging.

I chalk this up to the more advanced level of the practice.  P90X has just as many level changes, Baron Baptiste has as many refinements to focus on, but Rea throws in a higher level of arm balances, and a more advanced ashtanga breath structure.  The arm balances activate stomach, back, chest - everything PUSH/HOLD!! - and then BREATHE!! - which still wipes me out.

So, today, I did make progress.  50 minutes is more than I've ever done before on this routine.  It got me to some tricky stuff I don't usually get to try.  I actually got one leg out of Bakasana (crane balance - I've had this one for some time) and into ??(something with your legs hovering between your arms)??, briefly.  (Legs are heavy!)  I got the first stage of Eka Pada Bakasanana on both sides, and on the right side was testing the balance with my left leg extended behind.  That's going to come along soon, I can feel it!  Exciting, because I used to have this pose, years ago, but then my hips got more open, and I lost it - which was annoying.  I also got farther with the right side on Eka Pada Koundiyanasana - but my hamstrings are limiting me there.  By that time, I'd tweaked a stomach muscle on Parivrtta Parsvakonasana, and I needed to stop.  I practiced Hanumanasana for those hamstrings, and that was it.

My arms were shaky well into dinner.

Sari shopping

I'm anticipating offering open practices at SCA events.  To that end, I need something historical to wear.  I ordered my first two saris today.

A plainer one for yoga, that looks like it might actually be wimpy enough to fold well for a pants wrap.
A fancier one that will go nicely with my blue choli, but has lots of other pretty colors.  The second one really reminds me of the illustrations I've been looking at.  I'll still need a practically transparent dupatta, but I'll use my Roman palla until I find something I like.

I looked at a bunch of newer yoga books, too, but didn't take any home, as it would have been very difficult to choose.  There's one by the Yoga Journal folks that does the best job of both presenting the asanas at top form, shown by some of the best (public) practitioners in the world, together with history and context of 'how did we get here'.  I also wanted a wonderful translation of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, which has first a poetic translation, and then a line-by-line translation of the Sanskrit, so you can see alternate word meanings.  Then there was the giant B.K.S. Iyengar book, which is so cool because it shows his life work, and he's no Rodney Yee, so it's much more real-looking.  But Yee has an Eight Weeks giant book too, which has eight weeks of practice, explaining why various choices were made in constructing practices, and that's supposed to help you make progress - I'd buy this one first, I guess.  I also looked at a lovely Yoga for Partners - someday I'll have people to try these with - and a fascinating Tantric Yoga that got very much into chakras.  And there was a Yoga Tricks book, about modifying poses to learn them or deal with injuries...I guess I'm having fun with this.

Today's Practice - Baron Baptiste's 20 min hip flow

Guide: The Yoga Bootcamp Box, 20 min hip flow

Duration: 20 min, plus more for back flexibility

Time: 10 am

Notes:

Got up feeling stiff.  Hamstrings tight as usual, but started to loosen.  Duration of this flow really not enough for me to take full advantage of frog stretch, etc. but did cure basic stiffness, got fluids moving.

Today's Practice - P90X Yoga

Guide: P90X Yoga X

Duration: 90 minutes

Time: 9 am

Notes:

I tried to do the extra pushups at plank...got to about eight and stopped, though I actually counted them for the review.  It occurs to me with this practice that it is really about just showing up...showing up to the mat, showing up to each pose.  If you need to drop out, drop out.  But show up to the next pose.

I was a bit sore at the tops of my glutes - where your thumbs rest when your hands are on your hips.  Not sure what caused that, though now that I'm done, those spots just feel tight.  If I had a TENS machine, I'd try it there, because I think it's a little overworked.

I got through everything, though my left side is really tight today.  Tried narrating myself a bit, to prepare for leading open practices as a regular thing.  Bianca says she's going to help me by taking pictures of me doing the poses...this will be really good, and I thought about when I would want a 'snap'.

This focus, as if I'm looking at myself from the outside, is helping me remember all the little refinements that aren't narrated in this video.  Like the four movements of lunge, and the breath basics of twists, and keeping "coffee feet"...or my legs properly energized.  Giving myself credit, encouragement, and breaks.  This is good.  Teaching will be really good for me.

I want fruit now.

Review - YogaX from P90X

P90X training videos

This video is a bit different from my other modern Guides, as it's presenting yoga as part of an overall workout program marketed to the gym rat.

However, I find that it's an impressively good routine for the yogi trying to get up to the intermediate level...it builds stamina!  There's crunchy bits for the experienced yogi to savor;...one series is a Warrior III (Virabhadrasana III), to vertical splits (Urdhva Prasarita Ekapadasana), to Half Moon (Ardha Chandrasana), to Twisted Half Moon (Parivrtta Ardha Chandrasana).  Tough.  And for the accomplished gym rat, there are so many pushups in this, you're going to be satisfied, too.

P90X knows it's a difficult system, but still provides a variety of models to show modifications.  I'm continually impressed that the female model included to show "just how flexible you'll get from a consistent yoga practice" can do every one of those pushups...everytime they go to plank (dandasana) in vinyasa, there's a full pushup before dropping down to chatauranga.  I still struggle with those - I can add about eight.

Some of the guys are there to show that yoga is possible with less flexibility...though one is a dancer, and has more flexibility than the non-yogini woman.

This is a long Iyengar workout (90 min.) with vinyasa inbetween each pose change - 22 extra pushups if you want to add them.  I do wish there were more metaphorical guides...the "flush your [tight area] with breath" sort of thing, or "spiral your upper thigh in, and your shin out"...but for very able not-yoga-people, the alignment directions do work.  They just leave aside a lot of the nervous system benefits.

Hip openers are limited to frog (Bhekasana) and a #4 stretch; only crane (Bakasana) as an arm balance.  Inversions: shoulderstand (Niralamba Sarvangasana) and plow (Halasana).  There's a short savasana, some yogic ab work, and aom's at the end.  No kriya, little pranayama.