Just back from the big guy's bez ball game. I don't recall my games as a kid being that interminable. Hard part is, he doesn't really seem to like doing it either. His team basically sucks. It's not a good sign when he's one of the best kids on the team. Bad work on the part of the parents who divvied up the teams. Some of them are overtly stacked with oversized, athletic eight year olds. Others, like my son's, are full of diminutive kids who seem to be learning how to throw and hit for the first time. It's a bit hard to see kids really trying to do well, but missing ten or twelve pitches in a row, and even at this early age, having to deal with the kids on the other team laughing and making fun of them. My son can hold his own, but it just isn't much fun to play on a team that's getting spanked like that. He knows that who ever is on first isn't gonna be able to catch the ball when he throws it to them. He doesn't see why he should bother to cover second base, because he knows nobody will figure out they should to make the throw there, much less would be able to do it if they even thought of it. He would like baseball if it were a "fun" team, so I'm not gonna pull him out. Hopefully he won't lose too much ground to his friends on the other teams.

Back to yoga. I tend to go to class on Saturdays if I'm off and if I get spousal dispensation. That rest day stuff is for the teachers, not me. I get too many undesired rest days as it is. My choices for classes on Saturday at our studio are either an Improv class or a Intro to First series class. If I'm trying to get somebody interested in going to ashtanga classes, I'll go to the Intro class with them. Otherwise, I go to the Improv class.

The teacher who taught today's class tends to give us what Tim went over in his Thursday morning Improv class for the "big kids". Most of the people who give Improv classes around here will start out with some surya A's and B's, then, instead of the usual standing sequence, will do what Tim calls Suryanamaskara C. It's a flowing sequence of postures that incorporates most of the standing sequence, plus a lot more. There's not one set sequence of postures, it will vary from class to class. There's usually something in there that will put everybody at their edge somewhere along the line. It usually works great at building heat and opening your mind and body to new things. After we finish that, we often do a sequence of postures that may help "research" a given area of the body or a given range of motion. Or maybe do a sequence that many folks don't get to see to often when doing their normal first and early second series practices. There's usually a few, or sometimes a whole lot, of postures to open the groins. Usually some shoulder work, and often some back bending stuff. One of the best sequences I had was a class where after the Surya A, B, and C's, we did some groin opening stuff, then we did most of the 2nd series postures leading up to and including kapotasana. But, before each of the second series asanas, we first did a setu bandha sarvangasana and a back bend, five breaths each. By the time we actually got to kapotasana, we were pretty open. And pretty tired. We then finished with 2 sets of six backbends. At first glance, that may seem like torture to some, but those back bends were some of the best ones I have ever done.

Today was sort a of run of the mill class. For some reason, it just didn't grab me. The sequencing of the Surya C didn't seem to flow as well as it usually does. We did a few things that we don't usually see, marichy E & F, Sapta sirsansana, urdhva kukkutatsana, etc, but it just was't as edgy as usual. Don't know why that was so. I wasn't able to get real sweaty. Oh well. Every day can't be the best practice ever.


Tomorrow is another day when I'm on call, no practice. I can feel myself getting stiff already. If I don't do my usual practice for more than two or three days in a row, I start to get stiffer and stiffer, especially in my forward bends. When I know I've got a few days in a row coming up where I'm gonna miss out, I think I start getting stiff just out of anticipation. I've got a chance at a noon improv class on Monday, but that still doesn't help that much. It may be a bad week, practice wise.

Non-attachment