Gong Xi Fa Cai (Wishing you prosperity) for the year of the pig.

Still no yoga, but the wounds are healing nicely. I’m hoping one more week then I’ll be able to start again.

What a different a week away can do for a person’s psyche. I spent 7 days on the other side of the country in Sydney with my sister and her beautiful baby. It’s a Chinese tradition to celebrate the newborn’s first month’s/full moon birthday. This is when the baby is introduced to friends and family and the mother’s one month’s confinement at home with the baby ends. Interesting tradition, I don’t know if I could be couped up all day at home without going utterly nuts.

Still no yoga for me. The wounds around the hips makes practice quite impossible. I can feel the loss of flexibility as the days pass by without practice. Some would say I should continue to practice come rain or sunshine (or scooter accident), but my body doesn’t feel ready for that, it’s still healing from the trauma and I’d rather save the energy for healing than spend it on yoga. I still sit and meditate and do stretches where and when I can, but I miss the moving meditation (and the profuse sweating) Ashtanga provides.

Not much else to write about today I’m afraid. I should go do some filing anyway, instead of spending time blogging about the yoga I’m NOT doing.

I tried my very first sun salutation yesterday and found out I’m not quite ready for practice yet. The injuries to the hips were too painful on every bend forward or backward (as in upward facing dog). I’ve had to resort to just “stretching” for now, as usual, mostly the hamstrings since they’re always tight.

I’ve been dreaming about drop backs lately, I don’t even know why. I haven’t even been “given” drop backs. I use to be able to do drop back as a child, up until I was about 15 years old, but I haven’t attempted one since.

I watched some TV movie thingy called “The Secret” which is about the law of attraction where you pretty much get what you wish for. Interesting concepts. I watched it on Saturday and put some of the techniques in practice on Sunday and it worked. I went out for lunch to a notoriously busy spot where parking is usually next to impossible. As I was driving, I was visualising getting a parking spot exactly where I wanted it. Lo-and-behold, I got what I wanted, I didn’t have to wait long for it either and to top it all off, the previous driver gave us his parking ticket which still had a good 2 hours left on it. Now I realise that this might just be coincidence, so when I went to another area for coffee later that afternoon, again, parking in this area is not so freely available, I visualised again getting a parking spot on the street that I wanted. As I turned the corner onto that street, a car pulled out. BAM! The parking spot was mine!

So yeah. I guess I’m pretty converted on the idea of getting what I wish for. I also put in practice of waking up every morning and consciously think about the things in my life for which I am grateful and to feel grateful for having those things. Life’s been looking up even more since then.

Oh my gosh I can’t feel half of my face. I had my first of 4 dental appointments to fix the tooth I broke from the accident. Had to get a local anaesthetic which is numbing the left half my face.

It’s rather funny, when I try to lift my upper lip to show the dental work, only the right side of my lip lifts up so I look a little like Elvis. And I can do a unilateral nose flare as well. Never knew that local can numb your nose! Oh well, at least I have my tooth back and it looks like no other teeth were damaged.

I think I’m about ready to go back to practice. I’m still covered in dressings and don’t have full movement back, but it’s enough to do some sloppy sun sals. I’m starting to feel stagnant so a bit of yoga would be nice to get the blood moving.

Well another forced yoga break for me. Haven’t practiced physically for over a week, but I have been meditating more, doing some simple pranayama exercises, appreciating life and coming to terms with how close I came to death.

“I came off a scooter”, that’s what I’ve been telling people who ask what I did to myself that warranted a body full of scrapes, scratches, bruises and dressings. I missed a corner because I was too inexperienced on a two wheeled motorised vehicle, ran off the road onto gravel then hit a pole (one of those thigh high poles with a reflector on them), flew over than handle bars and landed on my jaw/face/forearms/front torso.

Long story short… I’m one of the lucky ones that came out of this type of accident with only scrapes, scratches and bruises. No broken bones, no spinal injuries, just superficial stuff.

I thought I was ready to share my experience, but I guess I’m not quite there yet. Still coming to terms with what happened to me. I’ve been so focused on getting better physically I’m not sure I’ve fully attended to my mental well-being from this experience.

One thing I will share is how lucky I feel now, in hindsight.

I’ll never forget the care and compassion that everyone gave me in my time of need. The nurses, the doctor, the radiologist, the cops, the paramedics, the kind people who stopped to offer assistance, everyone who offered well wishes and most of all, M. I love you dearly.

The days between posts seem to be getting more and more, but at least I got my lazy butt onto the mat an incredible four times this week. Yes, FOUR times… woohoo for me (ok, so I realise it’s not quite a 5-6 days a week practice, but I’m making my way there again).

So a quick breakdown… Strength has taken more than a couple of steps back. Stamina seems to have left me completely. Flexibility has already returned for the most part. Bandhas are intermittent. Breath is surprisingly all there. Drishti is in and out. Concentration has improved.

Out of the four practices this week, I only had one full practice. I was dreading the full practice because I didn’t want to find out how much I lost in kurmasana, supta k and garba p. Turned out I didn’t lose so much in any of them, and surprisingly, no bruises post-garba-p.

I do feel as though I’ve lost some of the passion I had for yoga. I don’t feel the “itch” to hop on the mat like I use to. I’m still glad I practice, and I’m encouraged with my progress with increasing the number of practices again. I’m considering taking classes again, morning classes (yikes), but this probably won’t happen for another month or so.

In more personal news, which I don’t often share online, I’m off on my annual holiday to my favourite country town, Margaret River. No ashtanga classes there, but I’ll bring my mat just in case the yoga-bug bites.

I’m glad I don’t make new year’s resolutions because I seriously suck at keeping any. I said I wanted to do more yoga practice in 2007 and it took me a whole week to get to my first yoga practice for 2007.

It’s now been probably close to a month since I did any proper practice. Naughty naughty, but then again, who’s going to sue me?

So practice wise, it was only half primary up to and including navasana with vinyasas between poses and not between sides. I took all forward bends at about 60% of what I can do. Everything I did today was just to ease myself back into a regular practice. I didn’t want to over-do anything, mostly my hamstrings, but also my strength and stamina.

Actually, I think I over-did the strength aspect because my muscles are shaking a little as I type.

Haven’t really lost anything, can still jump back with a touch-down and can still jump through but with a small amount of feet dragging. All 5 navasanas were there but the final lift and vinyasa was non-existent.

Injury-wise, both the back and left hip thing seems to be almost back to normal. The back started to tweak a little (or maybe it was my imagination) towards the end in backbends but otherwise it was a very pain-free practice.

I don’t even want to think about attemptin kurmasana, supta k or garba p right now. I’m happy just getting reaquainted with bandhas and breath.

Wow it’s been ages since I blogged. It’s also been ages since I’ve done any yoga.

The last part of 2006 has been a rollercoaster. A stack of personal problems that lead to fewer and fewer yoga practices until there has been virtually none. All I can say for now is that things are better, so I’m looking forward to re-dedicating myself to Ashtanga in 2007.

I’ve definitely lost some flexibility, particularly in my hamstrings, which have always been my “weak” point. Strength and stamina would also be less than before, so the first few practices are going to be more a practice in mindfulness and respecting my limits more than anything else.

In other news, I had a quiet new year’s eve, which was a change and ended up being the best new year’s eve I’ve had in ages. Great company, great conversation, great food and I was in bed at the *reasonable* hour of 1 am.

Hopefully I’ll have some practice news in my next entry.

Possibly the longest time I’ve abstained from yoga: 2 week and 3 days.

I had a short practice yesterday, all of standing (minus parivritta parshvakonasana coz the left hip still doesn’t want to fully flex-adduct), Primary just up to and including janu C, backbends and full closing. It was very good, the back wasn’t really complaining much and I felt strong but started to lose strength and stamina by the time janu C came along.

Janu C was unexpectedly good both in the approximation of the pose and how I felt in the pose. I’ve been wary of it since I had a boo-boo in the left knee while coming out of janu C early this year. I’m still wary of the pose so progress has been slow. Yesterday was the first time I’ve felt quite comfortable in janu C AND could square my hips and bring the bent knee to 45 degrees AND do a full forward bend. It was kinda like the full expression of the pose, which I thought would take me longer to achieve.

Other than that practice was pretty uneventful.

Went to get a remedial massage yesterday and it was fantastic. Can’t praise it enough! I’m not completely back to normal but at least 80% better than before.

I got a lot of trigger point therapy, where they find knots in your muscles then press it really hard for about 30 seconds to promote blood flow into the muscle and loosen up the knots. I have a pretty high pain threshold for these sorts of things so the poor girl had the press really hard and hold the pressure for quite some time before the pain starts to subside.

I’ve still got heaps of knotted muscles, but there’s only so much the body can take before it needs a rest. My next appointment is right before Christmas, I’m already looking forward to it.