Uplifted

 

"I Do Love You" by Jander Lacerda, my friend.

J - The Husband and I are honored to have this painting hanging in our bedroom.

Day TWENTY

It's official. As described by the Missus and like many of you, I have bikram war wounds too.  There they are on both my knees, the top of my right foot and even the top of my right toes.  Interestingly, nothing on my left foot or toes...hmm...it makes me wonder if I am not pressing down hard enough on my left.  I also have something that I have yet to hear others say they have:  I have butt burn.  Yes.  Butt burn.  Due to the constant swiveling around on a wet towel after each pose to quickly get into savasana, I have rug...errr...towel burn in the fleshy part where the lower glute muscles meet the top of my hamstrings.  It is the part of skin that is just exposed after my shakti shorts ends.  I just put lotion on all these dry parts and owie!  The butt burn stings!!!

The cravings continue.  Last night, I stopped and bought a New York slice of cheese pizza.  I haven't eaten pizza in years!  Today for lunch, I craved Eggs Benedict and looked for a place that made it near my job.  Thankfully, a local diner served it and I inhaled the stuff with such glee that I thought, "Is this what it is like for pregnant women to have cravings?"  I'm not pregnant so I still chalk it up to the yoga. 

It snowed during 7am class with George.  The Husband and I love George.  There's something about the way he teaches that makes us more honest about our practice.  It's too bad that he doesn't regularly teach morning classes.  I'm trying to convince to teach at least one weekday class in the morning but I don't know how successful I'll be.  Perhaps I need to get a group of us from the morning to write comments to the studio owner and ask for George. 

The Husband joined me again today, after just attending yoga yesterday.  I also managed to convince him to practice in the second row.  I moved back, he moved up.  We compromised our usual spots and we literally met in the middle.  It was a physical reflection of our relationship.  :)

George teased The Husband just before we started and said, "Now that you are in the second row, we are going to make you work harder!"  The Husband jokingly acted as if to retreat to the back row but I know for George, he works harder.  Isn't it amazing how some teachers inspire you to work harder?  When I fell out of standing forehead to knee, he looked at The Husband and said, "Now that ActionJoJo fell out, you are going to have to make up for that."  Ha!

Today was a strong class and no signs of nausea from last class.  George adjusted me slightly when we were in the left side of triangle.  I have a tendency to bring my right upstretched arm towards 11 o'clock when it should really be pointing straight up, at midnight.  He fixed that and rotated my head so that my chin closer to my shoulder.  George also watched me like a hawk in standing separate forehead to knee.  I realized today that I am able to get my locked arms behind my ears, which helps me to tuck my chin to my chest and keep it down as I round myself down (like an angry halloween cat or as if there was a bar or a beach ball underneath me...as my teachers like to say).  He advised me to keep rounding my back and as I reach my lowest point, to keep rounding it even more by sucking the stomach in.  If only then, if my forehead still doesn't touch my knee, he said to bend my knee but not too soon or else I'll never teach my back to round itself as much as possible.  I also realize when I bend my knee in this pose, my hips go out of alignment and I've had corrections from several teachers to stick the hip of my bent leg back up but when I do that, I lose the contact between my forehead/bridge of my hose to knee.

Before the balancing series, Alicia always explains the goal of keeping the knee locked and advises not to progress until we've achieved that goal.  "Never build a house on rocky foundation," she would say.  And it seems that I have built a rocky foundation when it comes to forehead to knee.  I've never really forced myself to round my back, making it stretch and open properly.  I realized this especially during separate leg stretching, when I started to kick my right heel out an inch and then another inch while keeping the bikram grip and my forehead to my knee!!  I'm so glad I "started over" in this pose because the progress has been so quick in just a few days.

For camel, George told us to keep lifting our chest up as we inhale and not just let the spine collapse backward.  He asked us to envision a harness attached to our torso and that we were being lifted up into the air.  When I imagined it, I envisioned myself flying with angel wings attached to my back and arms outstretched surrendering to the flight.  It made me smile and lift my chest.  Maybe this is why camel wasn't so bad today.