Graciously

I knew he had lied to me, now I have caught him out.

Do I feel any better for it? No, not really. At least I know I made the right decision in the end…..

I have lots to do – I don’t feel like I am getting any of it done. The big issues are as follows:-

- Finish off some cases at work which have been dragging on
- make some big work related decisions and sort out paperwork to go with
- Get the electrician finished and out of the flat
- Sort out a new kitchen
- Decorate flat
- Get new bicycle wheel
- Get car serviced
- Book flight to India
- Do this months reading for TT
- Teach some more practice classes

Right, it doesn’t seem so ominous when written down – its short after all; but sometimes anything over and above just getting up in the morning and going about the day seems like such an effort…

I have had a horrible cold this week and its really knocked my movtivation. I did a very short practice on Tuesday, then nothing yesterday as I just felt like I couldn’t move. If there is ANY space in my flat around the electrician’s boxes, cables, tools etc, then I will practice tonight. I definitely can’t fit a class in on Friday night as I have a rehearsal for the wedding in the evening, and then won’t manage the class on Saturday either as there just isn’t time. Hopefully I can find a space in my mums house and practice there – at least I can use her mat!

Right, work… that’s what I am here in the office for!

My throat hurts I am supposed to be singing at my friends wedding on Saturday….. not good.

I am not really looking forward to the wedding – it’s not that I don’t want to be there for my friend, it’s just that I am going alone and I don’t think I will know anyone else there. The rest of her close friends who are my friends too live overseas so are not coming. The invite was for me and C – obviously not taking C with me. She said I could bring another guest, but who would I bring?

The only upside to the weekend is that I will go home and see my mum too – she asked me if I wanted booking in to the Saturday morning yoga class, alas, I fear I won’t have time for it. I will also hook up with some Cambridge friends on the way back to London – that will be fun!

Did a nice yoga class last night – 3 of us and N teaching – no stragglers! We did quite a lot of chanting, I don’t think that helped my voice much.

Still eating chocolate – but have given it to CK to hide from me. Don’t even feel hungry (just ate my lunch though… at 11.30!), but still have the urge to pig out…. I’ll get fat at this rate!

No yoga tonight, meeting a friend who I met in India at Christmas – It will be great to catch up.

Step class at lunchtime will be my exercise fix!

I don’t know why, but this last week I have been really craving chocolate. Today’s chocolate fix is Reese’s peanut butter cups. Although there is way more peanut butter in them than chocolate – so maybe it doesn’t count Lets pretend I don’t have a caramel green and blacks bar in my drawer for the time being….

I had lots of fun doing yoga yesterday – I was helping with my friends Teacher Training thesis which is about the effect your skeletal make up has on your practice. Much of it is based on what we learned at Paul Grilley’s workshop, but as I have problem shoulders we were comparing my shoulder mobility with hers. Paul Grilley demonstrated how the acromion process on your shoulder could impinge the amount you can raise your arms. We took comparison shots and my friend has considerably more room to move her arms than I do….

To get any more extension in the arm, the joint must rotate, bringing the arm outwards and causing the arms to bend and the elbows to point outwards. This has a startling effect in forearm balances – in fact I can hardly manage them without a belt to keep my arms together.

One other startling thing that I didn’t know until now is that I also have no neck… well, no extension in it anyway – it just gets lost in my big shoulders….

I am feeling a bit disenchanted with yoga today – too many egos and not enough space….

I went to class with my usual teacher this morning – she is just back from retreat – she said some very wise words at the beginning of our practice; discussing how some people are not ready to take on the spiritual life attached to the yoga practice and get their values confused, really just ending up in a bit of a mess. Unfortunately, I seem to have run into a few too many yogis who listen but don’t really seem to take these things on board and conduct themselves in a not very yogic way….

In the afternoon – following a pretty disastrous tube journey and a rushed lunch I went to the David Swenson workshop on jump throughs and handstands. I was really pleased that I could attend as I was keen to see what he was like. He did impress me actually, very grounded and not at all affected by his ‘guru’ status. I kind of enjoyed the session, but I didn’t really learn anything I hadn’t heard before on other workshops or just figured out from my own practice. I was quite disappointed with some of the people there, but don’t really want to go into it. I think it would help if Triyoga would cap the numbers for the workshops, or at least arrange the mats in a sensible fashion before workshops start.

Anyhow, onwards and upwards. I’ll do self practice tomorrow, or go to my friends class – at least then the only ego I will stumble on is my own.

It was good!

Does the fact that it was a yoga persons party count?

No, I thought not….

Up in 4.5 hours – Urgh

….will always be just that. I decided to have my hair cut yesterday, I have long straight hair and have done for years. I decided it was time for a change – get some layers cut into it.

My hairdresser was sympathetic to my concerns that I wanted to keep the length etc. She cut my hair, and has gently graduated the front – but really, it looks the same. It is long, it is straight and it just hangs….

So, do I go and spend another £40 and get another hairdresser to cut some more off, or do I live with the fact that unless I cut it all short, its just going to look the same?

There are about a million things I should be doing in the flat right now, like my ironing, vacuuming, washing up…. but I haven’t found time to write in my blog all week so these things will have to wait for a few more (minutes/hours/days, depending on how motivated I feel once I have finished typing!).

So, on Saturday and Sunday I went to the Yin yoga workshops with Paul Grilley. I thought they were excellent, I don’t usually do anything which is ‘yin’, but I will try to do a little more. As usual, there was some piss taking relating to Ashtangis – but that’s OK – lol!

The course was pitched at an advanced practitioner/teacher level, which was really good. We started off with an hour and a half of practice, then did an hour and a half theory before lunch, more theory after lunch, then another practice for the last couple of hours of the day. We covered lots of different aspects of yoga, more than just the anatomy.

Paul discussed how personalities fit into yoga – describing the scale as starting with Panda bears, for whom everything hurts, and at the other end of the scale you have the Black Knights, those who will practice daily through any pain ‘its just a flesh wound, after all!’. He also talked about dealing with teaching these characters. My friend, who came along too is now calling me a black knight!

The most fascinating part of the weekend for me was the anatomy stuff – this was why I had attended, after all. He showed us slides of the human anatomy so that we could see how much peoples skeletons differ, and how, depending on your skeletal makeup, everyone has a different practice. If you have little space between your vertebrae, no amount of opening your heart chakra will improve your back bend. If you have forward protruding hip sockets, upavista konasana will be more difficult. He started to go into how to assess your students for where their skeletal limitations lie, but unfortunately he was going into this in much more detail this week – and I have to work

As a result of this workshop I am certainly going to stop beating myself up over some matters of alignment – I don’t think my hip sockets will ever allow me to open up my legs entirely in Utthita Parsvasahita, and my shoulders will never open up properly in a back bend. There is a video clip excerpt from his DVD Anatomy For yoga on the Pranayama website which demonstrates how shoulder mobility affects back bends – I have those same shoulders as the guy in the video!

Yoga wise, I didn’t practice on Monday as I will ill – first day off work in YEARS. Practiced again yesterday but it was a much more yin class, which was good for me as I was still feeling a little run down. Today I have done primary, it went fine. I have been practicing doing the jump backs from the seated asana – I will get it eventually! My Prasarita Padottanasana A seems to have suffered from doing less yoga over the past couple of weeks, but it will come back. Bound Mari D both sides, so haven’t lost that twist!

Other than that, I am pleased to say that my bed is getting more comfortable – or should I say, I am getting used to it. It’s nice to be getting some proper sleep again! The sofa is great too – a nice size for guests too, two people can recline comfortably – It was a good buy.

Finally – I have eaten too much chocolate this week. My colleague has custody of the Maya Gold and I get square by square rations throughout the day…..

The inspiration for this post and thanks go to Vanessa for her handy tip on jumping back.

As soon as I read her post, and not being one to waste any time when it comes to yoga, I had to clear up the pile of files on my office floor in order to make room to try it (I probably needed to clear up a bit anyway!).

Jumping back is one of those things I don’t try very often – its in the category of things that ‘I can’t really do yet’ and hence, I try a couple of times then resort to the lift, tip forward then jump back technique.

Once I got home, I got my mat out in order to follow V’s second tip and see if I could get the feet past the arms with the knees closer together. And yes I can – hooray, but my god, could I feel those bandhas afterwards – my stomach was crying out to me!

Now that I know it is possible, I will try and add it into my practice, although I am not sure how well I will fare after having done all of the standing sequence. And certainly at the speed I am going at the moment it would just not be feasible for the whole practice – it would take me forever.

Its much easier if I go on my fingertips – I know this isn’t recommended for jumping through forwards, which isn’t a problem for me anyway, but what about jumping back. Is it OK to do a few whilst developing that all important bandha strength (or growing a longer set of arms!)?

I am tyring to resist the urge to book another workshop, but am also very tempted to see David Swenson at work – I suspect I shalln’t be able to resist – I may have to do the Saturday afternoon workshop at Triyoga Soho……