Born Again

Should have paid the monthly fee this month. Made another practice today and I should get to go tomorrow as well. I had clinic scheduled for this morning. A few months ago, I told my schedulers that for any day that I'm scheduled to be in clinic for the morning, to start me at 10:00 instead of the normal 9:00 start. I have to work thru lunch to make up for that extra hour but it's worth it. Plus, we never really get lunch any way. Tonight, I'm in the hospital overnight on call, so i get tomorrow off. And mysore starts at 9:00 so, between today and tomorrow, I get two mysore classes in a row.

I went to this mornings practice early. The pranayama people had just gotten going when I walked in. I really don't like to go in when they're doing pranayama if I can avoid it. It can be a distraction sometimes to have people moving around when you're trying to maintain mental control in pranayama with Tim, when every message in your brain tells you you're dying from acute hypoxia. The wooden flooring isn't anchored to the underflooring that well. When you walk on it, it squeaks. I did a short bout of stretching to get loose and began practice at about 6:30. I took Savasana at 8:50. I did all my poses, except I ran out of time, so I just did the three back bends and skipped the rest of closing except for the last three poses.

That's the first time I've done all of first and all of my given poses in second in forever. Well, not quite all. I forgot to do the standing Ardha Baddha's. I've come to accept these inadvertent omissions as the normal sequelae of geezerhood. I still can't get my ankles crossed on my own in Supta K. I had to spray myself again to get into Garbha Pindasana. Everything else in first was okay. Other than the lift out of Karandavasana, I can't think of anything in second that I wasn't able to get. I was able to do all of the Tittibhasanas, and bound B reasonably easily. I got myself into Dwi Pada Sirsasana, though it was ugly. That one I could tell pretty quickly that I was out of second series shape. Tim came over to adjust me in it after I got the second leg crossed behind my head. It took him a while to get settled in and get me how he wanted me. When it came time for him to let me go on my own and balance for the five breaths, my neck was starting to collapse forward out of fatigue. I was surprised that I was able to do those two poses though after a long layoff. I also landed Bakasana B, after only four or five tries. I could have had it on the first try but I over cooked it and went too far. I landed Karandavasana the first try, another pleasant surprise. I thought I was going to be too tired but I was able to focus on holding the lift and let the duck come if for a reasonably soft landing, not one of my usual, "Look out below, Incoming!!" type drops from on high. I was tired by the end, but was pretty satisfied with how I did.

I also did all of the researching poses for the second series backbends and did Hanumasana and Samakonasana. Usually, in the past, the few times that I have tried to do all of those poses, I wouldn't do the researching too, as doing everything takes too long and is pretty fatiguing. I would typically reserve doing the researching if I was only doing second series. I wasn't expecting to be able to hold up for all of that, but I never got that message from my brain that usually tries to convince me to abort the session early. Don't know why and don't know if it's going to be something that's reproducible.

I've got to figure out how to approach tomorrow. I won't have time to get to all my second series poses if I do all of first, like I did today. I'll only have two hours at best. So I can flash the first series poses, or I can truncate the series at some point, or I can just do second, or I can see how much I can get in without doing any of the research (well, I going to keep Samakonasana and Hanumanasana). I had promised my self I wouldn't start doing only second until I had my first series back. But, I was so pleased with how second went today. I was expecting to have to fight my way back thru it a pose at a time. Some of the poses today seemed to go even better than when I was doing them last summer. Who knows why this stuff happens.

Got a couple of Tim comments today. First he strolled by while I was doing my version of Marichyasana D. As lame as it looks now, just four weeks ago he was having to winch me into it. He looked over at me as I made my bind and said, "Ah, some reducing has happened!!" So nice to have your adiposity pointed out. Later, I was being assisted back up from Karandavasana. Once I was back up and out of it, I didn't have a real stable forearm base and had to struggle a second to get balanced so that I wouldn't fall out of it before making an attempt at the vinyasa. He told the person on the mat next to me, "He really showed true grit on that one, eh?" I must have been making unconscious noises, grunts, wheezes, groans, what have you. He walked off saying, "Yep, true grit, he's the John Wayne of Yoga" It was funnier sounding when he said it anyway.

Anyway, the good vibe from a good practice is still with me, twelve hours later. I wish they could all be like this, but, they aren't. So, for now, motrin, try to get some sleep tonight and we'll see how it goes tomorrow.