I went into practice this morning a little on the wary side. Only one other practice in the last week, was on call the night before and actually had to do some work instead of getting paid to sleep, never did any of the stretching yesterday that I kept promising myself I was going to do, got to mysore practice with almost no time to spare--I was expecting a pretty marginal go of it. Of course, it was a nice practice instead. I'm just not going to have expectations anymore, they're always wrong.

Well, not always. I was expecting to get tired and I did. The room was already hot and humid from the preceding class and I was going in with tanks that weren't completely full. There was once a time when I could be up most of the night at work and be able to do stuff the next day with no discernible drop off in performance. That no longer happens. I first noticed this back when I golfed regularly. My game, which was never a gifted one, was clearly rougher and I had less touch on post-call days. Missing sleep doesn't seem to affect my flexibility but it does seem to degrade my energy. Some times after a long night at work, I'll get a headache in practice. I had a mild one after finishing today but it went away pretty quickly.

I didn't hold every posture as long as I might usually. I expected to be a bit more tired than usual and I wanted to have as much strength and endurance available as possible for those last three postures and for backbends. Even moving faster than usual, I still couldn't keep up with my wife. She has to do so many postures in the two hours available that she usually ends up in the second series when I'm still doing janu sirsasana. What I don't get is how she never looks tired, even by the end. I look totally wiped. I've drenched my practice rug, my tank top and a sweat towel or two with sweat. Today, when I was doing back bends, Tim wandered over to help me to standing. I was sort of taking a break between repetitions. He asked me which rep I was on. When I told him I had just done three so far, he said, "Just three? But you look like it was your thirteenth!"

Tomorrow, I'll get to give it another try. July 4th is a holiday so I don't have to work. Two mysore practices in a row, woo hoo. I should be plenty rested, I'm going to bed as soon as I finish this, so I'll have no excuses for tomorrow. No expectations either