Wandering Mind

Last time for everything... I officially have less than a week left in Buffalo, so everything I do that is day dependent is the last time for each. Sigh...

Resisting Temptation. It’s hard but it’s good for you. I’m having a serious ice-cream craving but I know if I go to the store I’ll get pizza, too. And then we end up back at the too full for bandhas fiasco. But to satisfy my craving without packin’ it in I made myself a thick and creamy and really cold protein shake. It’s not quite ice-cream, but it does the trick (and it’s not 1,200 to 2,400 calories like there would be in the pint of ice-cream and a 1,500 calorie pizza I would probably get, too).

And speaking of bandhas; they were back today and boy were they helpful. It was my last (you'll probably be seeing that word a few times in the next week...) Friday at 4 and it was just me for the first half of my practice before Carrie showed up. It was nice to have a little time to move my practice away from my friends here without doing it cold turkey. I’m getting much better about not having expectations going in to my practice and I seem to enjoy my practice more and I think my practice deepens on the spiritual, mental and physical level. The Spontaneous hand stands were back tonight and I think it was largely due to the bandha revival. I went into handstand in every vinyasa up to navasana and most of them (2/3) were strong and balanced and I could hold them for more than a breath. And about half of them I could, from handstand, bend my knees then bend at the hips and swing through to the next pose. It felt so good to feel and see something change in my practice. I too often just notice when I’m stuck. During navasana when one might try to go into handstand I just went into a tripod sirsasana instead. That turned out to be a bigger shoulder workout than I would have expected so the handstands were done for the most part after that. I did have a couple of 4 breath handstands near the end… Most of my other poses felt really good, too. My knees were a bit tender so I didn’t push them. I felt like I wanted to go further in supta kurmasana but I think I would have needed an assist so right after that pose I worked yoganidrasana for a little while. I was able to take my knees further back on my shoulders than usual and the feet came a little further onto the back of my head.

My hamstrings always feel so tight, too, but I’m noticing they seem to be getting longer. My right one is still recovering from the pull/tear a year and a half ago. I’m starting to get the feeling that a lot of my tightness in my hips, knees and hamstrings stems from something mental that I’m not releasing or dealing with so it will be interesting to see if I can release my self from those joints and muscles maybe it will allow the old mental issues to release, too. I’m looking forward to straight legs one day in tittibhasana and kurmasana.

I noticed today that I usually seem to go into utthita hasta padangustasana with… a very strong dislike, shall we say… for the pose. I think my hamstrings frustrate me. But today as I was feeling this dislike before the pose I realized I needed to make it a pose that I did like so I backed off a bit and didn’t worry about how straight my lifted leg was. I know it will be easily straight one day and I was able to enjoy the pose today. It made me think back to about a year ago when I couldn’t even hold my toe in that pose… I also realized that I’ve made a lot of progress in all my poses and my practice as a whole in the last year. It gives me faith for the future. So here’s to a future with Faith but no expectations.