Because of my worries about possibly getting to work late if I went to pranayama this morning, yesterday I asked Tim if it was likely he might be done with class a little before 7am. I explained my concerns about work and what not. He pondered it a bit and offered that maybe if he didn't do as much talking at the start, the class should finish in time for me to get to where I needed to be. So today, it turns out I needn't have bothered him. Because he is including the teacher trainees, we had pranayama-ultra-lite. He gave a quick talk on the techniques for what we would do in that class, since there were a lot of students new to pranayama. Then we did just the Ujjayi breathing and the first half of the nadi shodana (alternate nostril) breathing. Shorter inhalations, exhalations and retentions. That didn't keep me from giving in to my fears and taking an extra breath though. I made it to the very last exhale retention and just caved in. This despite Tim's reassurances to the newer students in the class that, despite how it might feel, none of us were going to die by stopping our breathing. Such a wuss.

I had my worst practice scenario develop today. Well, I guess second worst. Worst is not getting to practice. Today I was on my feet from 8:00 until 4:30. I then traffic jammed it and made it to class just as they were starting. Everything stiffer than usual and no chance to warm up before that first sun sal. After squeezing my mat in between a couple of folks who were already set up, I went to the bathroom to sprinkle some water on my practice rug to give it a little more traction. While in the bathroom, I snuck a quick forward bend, then came out and joined the class in progress. It turned out okay. Nothing broke. I guess the work I've been doing the last few months is starting to establish a new range of motion baseline. That's kind of a dumb thing to say. I've jinxed myself.

I was surprised to see a bunch of teacher trainees in our class tonight. I figured they would all go to either 7:00am led 1st series with Tim or Mysore at 9:00am. Maybe he's having them take turns doing the evening classes to minimize the crowding in some of the morning classes. They certainly filled out the pranayama circle this morning. There were 31 people there. Usually there's 5 to 10. In addition to those practicing tonight, there were several of them at the back of the room observing the class. And some others came in to observe the 7:30 pm Intro class. These people are yogaholics. I don't think could do that much yoga each day.

I only get pranayama tomorrow. I got lucky today and got done early enough to tempt the traffic gods. Tomorrow, I've got clinic in the morning and I have a case that starts at 6 pm, so asana ain't gonna happen. Getting to go tonight was gravy though. I wasn't counting on it, so I'm ahead for the week.