If I thought I was sore yesterday, today is worse, and yet it feels good in a strange way.

Practiced yesterday in the evenings and had yet another conversation with self in bed this morning at 7 am, and again, by the time I got up it was too late to practice. I don’t think I could’ve practiced this morning actually, the hamstrings are really complaining so much that I even had to take some painkillers.

On another note, the artwork you see is meant to be virabhadrasana B. Inspired by the wonderful lady responsible for Ashtangi.NET. J, I hope you don’t mind that I keep using you for my inspiration! Full sized version of the artwork here.

Back to a couple of practice notes. Garba pindasana is better now when I use my arms for leverage. I thought I had set off my left hip after I released the pose because it felt really funny/weird. It wasn’t painful or sore or tweaked, it just didn’t feel like the right hip and that got me worried, don’t want another injury to the left hip since I’ve just recovered from a couple! I took the rest of the asanas easy, especially the closing lotus ones. Turns out I didn’t hurt anything ’cause I feel fine today.

Started to bind marichyasana C again. The right side (first side) binds real nicely, the left side is stiffer. I still can’t completely close off that hip without pain, so again, I’m being kind to myself and not binding so tightly.

Jumped into bhujapidasana and kurmasana again. The novelty has worn off now, it’s just part of the practice now.

If I should have learnt a lesson by now, it’s to not take more than 2 days off yoga, because the next day, I hurt. I’m not in a state where I’m immobilised, but it’s not even comfortable for me to sit up because my back muscles are sore. My everything is sore. Hips, thighs, arms, shoulders, chest, all ouchies.

I showed M the jumping into bhujapidasana last night (and I landed it, so I know this ain’t a fluke but some progress), he said that’s not normal and it’s like a circus trick. I laughed. I have to agree, many of the things we do in Ashtanga are circus-trick-like to the untrained eye, to me, it’s just a little bit more progress in my asana practice.

I didn’t end up getting up this morning for practice, I lay in bed thinking about getting up to practice and by the time I got up, it was time to get ready for work. I’ll practice tonight though, I’m hoping to tire myself out so much I fall into a coma at 9:30 pm and wake up at 5:30 am to practice. That’s one good thing about morning practice at home, I can wake up a little later because there’s less getting ready to be done.

I shouldn’t ever have preconceived notions about my practice because I’m sure to disappoint myself, in a good way. My last practice was 9 days ago, I haven’t done any practice for various reasons, stress being one of them.

Anyway, so I thought I’d get in a practice today rather than sitting in front of the computer for an additional 1.5 hours I don’t really need to. I practiced in the evening, which I hope won’t become a habit since my morning class practices last month. Oh yeah, no more classes again for me, I’ve decided to practice at home this month.

So… I’m rambling, must be the lack of blogging too, the natural structure of my blog just isn’t very good today. No matter moving on to the practice.

It rocked.

Seriously.

That’s how good it was, it needed its own paragraph! I thought practice was going to suck because of the 9 days off, but it didn’t, it was smooth, I was flexible, I was strong, and I can even give out a woohoo because I JUMPED INTO BHUJAPIDASANA WITHOUT FEET TOUCHING THE GROUND ONCE! It was by total accident, but woo-freakin-hoo, it buzzed me up. I even jumped onto my arms for kurmasana and managed to keep the feet off the ground, mind you, for kurmasana I had to put the feet down eventually to readjust my shoulders behind my knees before the helicopter lower down.

And another epiphany, garba pindasana… roley poley… I fall over on my side on the 4th roll regardless of whether I’m on a thick mat or not because my twisting and roling just isn’t enough and I panic and try to twist too much on the 4th roll and fall over. The good part is that I got a solution for myself for the time being… letting go of my head and using my arms for a little more leverage to swing up and down and twist. It worked too! I even got up to very decent kukkutasana by myself.

Everything else about practice was super. No inversions, ladies’ stuff going on (I’m sure the world needs to know about my cycle), but it was all so good when I thought it was going to be so bad so I’m in an incredible mood.