I just got back from the sock hop. All three of my kids were in different dance skits with their classmates. It was fun to see the kids having so much fun doing it. After all those dance lessons, I guess some of it has paid off. They had no fear up there and really enjoyed doing it. They stayed in step and moved well. Looks like my dancing genes are recessive. Good thing.

Well, it's been a while since I posted. I got tired of explaining why I had no practice to discuss. I finally got some in today. In fact, given that I hadn't had a real practice in almost a week and a half, I went to two different classes today. First up was the mid day led first series class. I had originally planned on going to the Intro to second series class in the evening, but I was feeling really stiff and felt the first series class would be more appropriate. My wife had kind of set things up with the kids for the day on the presumption that I was going to be at the evening class, so..., I figured why not. I really wanted to get back on track with my backbending too. So, I chanced the possible negative effect of two practices in one day, especially in such close conjunction with the new moon, and went for it. It went fine. I guess that I needed to do the first series and forward bending and I wanted to do the backbending. I've gone to two classes in a day a couple of times in the past. One time, early on, I went to a couple of health club type classes in one day. Can't remember why I did it, but it was no big deal. The other time, I was going to San Fran for a meeting. I went to mysore here and did up to navasana, then booked it to the airport. After I got in to Oakland, I rented a car and went to 7th Heaven in Berkeley. I took a led class there with Leigha Nicole. Unfortunately for me, she decided that since Lino Miele had recently given a workshop there, we would do a full vinyasa class. After all the up and down dogs from the morning and the evening, my wrists and shoulders let me know that it was a little too much. Tonight's class went okay. I got a little more tired than I might normally, but I still did okay in most of the postures. I was kind of disappointed to still be so stiff though. It's not the kind of thing I would do regularly, And probably never when Tim is around. Some people do go to his morning class and then also the Intro to second class in the evening. But, he usually lets them know it's not really kosher. He won't tell them NO, but he lets them know gently that's it's probably not the best idea. Then he has us all hold bhekasana while he adjusts each person in the room, one by one. Point taken.

There was a big dent in the drywall on one side of the yoga room. Apparently, somebody chakrasana'd almost right thru the wall. Usually, the dents or holes in the wall that show up from time to time are from people keeling over while trying to do head stand near the wall. There's this one patched over area that's actually referred to by the name of the person who created the hole when they crashed trying to do some of those twisty head stand variations. We were debating if the new hole was as big as K********'s old cave in. It's close but not quite. These wall crushers always seem to luckily occur in between the studs. That would kind of suck to land right in the one spot where the wall won't give. I guess you would see a pair of cheek marks on each side of the stud rather than one big dent. My day is coming, I'm sure. I haven't toppled in headstand in a while, but I have gone down in some of the seven headstands and in pincha mayurasana.

It's interesting how doing practice can change your outlook so much. After going that long with almost no practice, going today just sort of evened me out. There's usually that physical sense of the rough edges of the body being smoothed out when you're done with a class. But also, there's the change in mood. The physical "rightness" tends to fade out pretty quickly. Just sitting here has tightened me up quite a bit. I still feel pleasant though. Both of the savasanas today were good ones, nice and long compared to usual. Good music quietly playing in the background. Nice sunny day to put the top down and cruise home. Things just seem right sometimes after practice. It is nothing overt, it's always hard to describe, harder to explain. But, it is nice to have been able to practice again. Hopefully, this coming week won't be as hard to keep things going as last week.