Wandering Mind

Practice today was much better. I played with hand alignment on my floating forward and back and I found I need to point my first finger directly forward, whereas I had been pointing the space between my first and second fingers directly forward. I'm sure I'll need to play with it more but it definitely felt better today. It also took some of the strain out of my shoulder. Other fun observations from my practice today - In Marichyasana B and D, when I put my foot in half lotus it is EXTREMELY important to put that thigh down to the ground. This stretches the muscle around the outside of the hip which allows the strain to come off the knee. I realized today, that this is how I tweaked my knee last week. At the beginning of the week I was leaning to the side a bit and really getting the thigh down which loosened that hip up. That's why I could go into lotus so easy later in the series and I had never been able to before. As the week wore on I stopped taking the half lotus thigh down to the ground and never stretched the muscle around my hip... and thus tweaked the knee. I wish I would have figured this out before I hurt myself... Next Fun - Urdhva Dhanurasana - walking the hands up and down the wall is a lot of fun. It seems to work really well if you just set up lying on the floor with your head and hands by the wall. Then raise up into the pose and walk your hands up the wall to standing. This gets the spacing from the wall right. Then just practice reaching back and down as far as possible and catch yourself on the wall. Walk the hands down to the floor. When resting between poses I stayed up on my head and moved my hands closer to my feet. I think today may have been the bendiest of my back bends yet. I don't think dropping back and standing up are too far away (ie. month or two). It felt good. I was able to rock back and forth today, too, without it feeling awkward like it usually does. Beth reminded me I need to inhale when going forward/up as it counterintuitive... I also think that fear is a bigger obstacle than flexibility...

So I'm happy again. I did have to cut my practice a bit short due to a class coming in but all in all it was a good day.