Graciously

It’s Friday afternoon, I am about 15 mintues away from going out for Birthday drinks and I have a zillion things I haven’t finished at work…. but, hey, birthdays only happens once a year, so I think I am just going to leave it all in a horrible stinking pile to deal with on Monday!

Practice today was good, which wasn’t what I was expecting at all. I had a pretty late night after going dancing. It was a fun night as we had the BBC there, filiming these guys! I won’t name them or the show otherwise I’ll forever get young boys finding my blog whilst searching for ‘her’!! I made a concerted effort not to be on the dance floor whilst they were filming, but may have been caught on the outskirts!! I am sure the actual show will have about 30 seconds footage from about 2 hours of filming. I’ll try and watch it on the iPlayer.

So, back to practice, it was very good and the shala was very quiet. I have been arriving at 7.30 for the last couple of days and haven’t had to wait, which is very nice. I don’t think there were more than 10 of us practising when I started this morning, so I got lots of adjustments and a Happy Birthday from H. I assume V told him! My backbends are really feeling much better now, I feel like it is only a matter of weeks before I will be able to stand up on my own. Strangely I now feel much more confident about being able to come back up, whereas before I could drop back on my own without fear. I suppose it’s just a confidence thing. I’ll work on it when I am way in Sri Lanka.

I had a bizarre cyber stalker experience yesterday. Back in March last year I went speed dating and for a few weeks afterwards my profile was on their website. I sent one e mail to a guy on there who contacted me, but decided he was a bit odd when he replied. Last year he e mailed me on a monthly basis (there are probably old posts on here to refer back to, if I could be bothered to find and link to them) until about December.

Yesterday morning I had an e mail from him, so 19 months after I first heard from him, saying Hi, did I remember him and would I like to join him for his office Christmas party as he had nobody to take….. WEIRDO!!! So, as any girl would do (I am not a cyberspy, honest, just doing due diligence) I put his e mail address into a search on facebook and found his profile which says he is MARRIED. URGHHHHHH – he looks pretty ugly too!!! Anyway, that isn’t really relevant to anything, but I thought I would write it down anyway, as a lesson on how odd people can be.

Anyway, time to go off and start birthday celebrations!!

Happy weekend everyone

I think my birthday celebrations have officially started and if I can help it they will continue through until the end of Sunday! I have been out this evening with my dad and stuffed myself with delicious sweet potato and spinach pie. Lovely now, but I am sure it will make me feel sluggish in the morning. Tomorrow I am seeing my mum, then Friday I am having drinks, Saturday is my birthday then Sunday is Bond day with V yay!!

Practice this morning was a bit creaky. My bum is still quite sore although piriformis seems to have calmed down. I had only done 1 practice in 5 days in the hope that the discomfort would ease up, but it hasn’t. I consider if resting for 4 days doesn’t sort it, then it doesn’t need resting, so will now carry on practicing around it. The shala was cooler than it has been in a while due to the particularly arctic weather we have been experiencing over the past few days, and although I was far from feeling cold, I didn’t sweat much – which is quite nice really. I did feel a bit stiff though, especially in the prasaritas. Backbends are going OK, fortunately!

I’m not going to aim to be at the shala before 7.30 tomorrow because there is really no point. I got there just after 7 today and had to wait for 20 minutes or so until about 5 spaces opened at the same time.

Not much else to report really. Tomorrow is a new day and who know what will happen!

I don’t seem to have managed to get to my blog since Wednesday night, Thursday was busy with work and then dancing in the evening and on Friday I decided to miss yoga in order to have a couple of days of recovery for my piriformis pain which has got quite bad again. I ended up doing nothing at all on Saturday due to a very, very bad hangover, thanks to many pints of cider and a couple of karaoke bars on Friday night. Impromptu nights out are always fun though!

Practice this morning was average, the shala was very busy so I did most of standing in the finishing room then went through seated poses fairly quickly. Piriformis and hamstring insert are both still sore so I am considering taking tomorrow off practice, then have moonday on Tuesday then back to the shala on Wednesday, by which time, hopefully, things will be better again.

Went to a Charleston workshop this afternoon which was fun, but the class isn’t on tonight, so I’m at home trying to be organised and do my boring paper work…. and write my blog

I’m ready for bed but will type a few words…. I had a pretty rubbish practice today as my piriformis pain was really playing up. I stopped after Navasana as the jump into Bhuja pidasana felt as though it might rip my pelvis apart (being slightly over dramatic here, but I’m sure you get the picture). It’s funny that actually doing BK yesterday only hurt a little, but the lasting effect of it drags on into the next practice. I just don’t think I am ever going to be able to do it

Generally it has been another busy day. I managed to leave the office quite early but had to take a US attorney out to dinner, it was fine though as she is good company. I don’t feel like I have had much time at home this week though, and it’s dancing tomorrow night.

I have still not read all of the Sunday paper, but have just unsealed the Style section to browse before I go to sleep!

Yet again the day seems to have whizzed past. I started the day by making an effort to leave the house quickly and get to the shala earlier – it was a wasted effort as I just queued for longer. Most days spaces become available at 7.40am.

Practice was fine, and dedicated to Anna’s job interview, I hope it had the desired effect. Still getting pains in the buttock/hamstring, and got squished down into baddha Konasana today too, which hasn’t helped much. I had to reduce the finishing poses to 5 seconds each in order to get out of the shala in time to shower and dry my hair before work… but it could be worse. The person who I often queue with told me today that he comes all the way from Brighton – Aiii! Stupidly as I was in a hurry to get to the office, I managed to leave all of my sweaty kit in the changing cubicle – woops… hopefully it will be in the lost property box tomorrow!

The rest of the day seemed to whizz by, one minute it was 5pm and people were going home, the next I was thinking about how hungry I was and noticed that it was nearly 8pm…. at that point I stopped what I was doing and walked out!

It seems to be holiday booking week for me this week; I had an e mail from a friend telling me they were organising a skiing trip in February, by lunch time he had phoned to tell me he was going to book for me! At least I have something to look forward to after Sri Lanka!

Today seems to have dragged on forever, it seems so long ago that I was getting up to go to the shala! I hardly managed to get up actually, I went to bed too late after going out for dinner at my friends house. It was lots of fun, good food and interesting company. I was actually home by 11 but managed to faff about for another hour before going to bed.

When I finally made it out of the house I was dismayed to find that not only was my closest bus stop closed, but the one after it too, so I had to hike much further than I would like to to get the bus. The rest of the journey was uneventful but I had to wait about 20 -25 mins to practice. I hate to be a whinger, but this is really bugging me at the moment. I am a bit sick of having to rush through practice then hardly having time to shower in order to get to work. Yes, I KNOW, I could get up earlier, but the chances are I would still have to wait, or maybe end up doing a considerable amount of my practice in the finishing room… what to do? Practice generally was OK, but slightly lack-lustre. I am still having some discomfort from my left hamstring/buttock, the first few forward bends are sore, but as I warm up, it seems to get better.

Despite having a load of work to get on with, I wasted most of my morning booking the Sri Lanka trip; once I have an idea in my head I have to get it sorted out. So this morning I booked my flights – that ended up being slow and annoying as I couldn’t book the tickets online as I have to renew my passport so currently don’t have a passport number, which is a necessity for an online booking. I then waited for 25 minutes for the airline booking office to take my call, only to be told that I should book through one of their dedicated travel agents, who, to be fair, sorted out my booking in about 3.5 minutes. I then filled out the retreat booking form and transferred money to the retreat, and confrimed my hotel bookings in Colombo, then went to the post office to send off my passport for renewal.

This afternoon I have just felt stressy trying to get work done. My colleagues were being rather jovial and put up CHRISTMAS LIGHTS over lunch, and thought it would be amusing to tell everyone who came onto our floor that I had given them permission to do so….. hmmmm ….. I then spent a couple of hours busting my brain trying to find novelty in a seemingly unnovel patent application. I really don’t like telling people that they can’t have protection for their lifetimes work; anyway, after a couple of hours of wracking my brains I came up with something possibly plausible?

So, that has been my day – I’m not sure what was the point of blurbing all of that out really, but there you go. An early night required tonight, and hopefully I will have a stronger practice in the morning!

I have done almost nothing this weekend and am slightly annoyed with myself.

Yesterday was scheduled as a do nothing day, so that was fine, but in the end I stayed in bed too long in the morning and couldn’t shift that fuzzy feeling that I get from sleeping too much. Other than a quick walk to the local shops to buy essentials and browse through the cheap clothing selection I stayed at home. I didn’t really want to buy anything just fancied the visual stimulation!

Today has also been lazy, but I am annoyed with myself and need to get energised! I set my alarm for practice, but dozed a bit and finally woke up at 8.15. 8.15 isn’t really too late to go to the shala, I would have been there before 9, but I thought I might practice at home, then mooched around and didn’t bother.

I was intending to go to a dance class this afternoon, but again, because I couldn’t really be bothered to make myself look presentable enough to go out, I didn’t bother. I did actually want to go to this, and to look at the shoes in the shop at the dance centre. Stupid me.

This afternoon I have some work I ought to do – but I seem to have just bought a Sunday paper, which could keep me occupied for the rest of the afternoon. Discipline is needed. I am going out for dinner tonight though, which will be nice and force me out of the house

Despite huge procrastination for the last couple of months, I have now decided that I am going to Sri Lanka. I decided to have a look on the Ulpotha website and saw that there is a two week Astanga course starting on 7th December. I decided that this must be a sign that I should go. I have e mailed Ulpotha to see if I can stay for the first week only, but if I must do 2 weeks, then I will. I’ll start off in Colombo for my friends wedding, have a week or so there then head off into the mountains for ‘retreat’. As usual I am a bit panicked about the prospect of holing myself up in a retreat in the middle of nowhere for any length of time, but it would probably be good for me. Although my past retreat experiences have been fairly off the beaten track, I get the impression that this one is probably more secluded. Anyway, I shall see what happens, and if I can get the all clear from work to take 3 weeks off, I will. It will mean that I will be in London for Christmas, which I don’t like much, but the thought that Susan and CK will be around makes it slightly less depressing. I don’t really dislike Christmas but I hate the way everything shuts down and you become hostage to your own soul! As Christmas in on a Thursday it means that there will be four full days of virtual shut down…. urk… but if I have been out of the office for the 3 weeks preceding, then I will probably have quite a lot to do.

Right, now I must spring into action, and could do with some energetic music to make me do so…. why, oh why, isn’t any of my pc downloaded music compatible with my mac???

I practiced twice yesterday, once in the morning, as usual, then again in the evening at Danny Paradise’s workshop.

Morning practice was fine, all of the stiffness and angst I had taken into practice on Thursday was overcome and things flowed nicely. It is amusing how much state of mind effects physical performance. Friday is my favourite week day at the shala. It is usually pretty quiet so there is no waiting to worry about and there is plenty of space to move.

The practice in the evening was also very nice. I stayed at work until about 6.30 and then went and had a coffee and snack with a colleague before the workshop started. A 7.45 start time seemed pretty late, particularly when you are used to starting practice about 13 hours earlier! Danny started talking about the origins of yoga and made lots of good point. I wish I had written some notes as many of them were very sensible and blog worthy!

The two main points that I took away from his introductory talk were firstly that there should be no dogma attached to yoga, and yet whenever a practice is conceived, be it yoga or religion or whatever, people will get totally attached to the way it should be done. There are no rules in yoga, there is no right or wrong way to practice, the ashtanga police are not going to come to get you if you practice mayurasana in your living room when you haven’t been given second (my poing – not Danny’s!)

The other point that struck home is that there is no path to happiness. Happiness is your own state of mind and you must create it. We all encounter problems in our lives and only we can decide how long we are going to hold on to them. You can make something a problem for a lifetime if you wish, but at the end of the day, we have the power to change our lives very quickly indeed if we are prepared to let things go.

There was of course quite a lot of emphasis on how good yoga is for you and how yogis will live long and healthy lives. I think he was preaching to the converted last night; I tend to think that those who attend yoga workshops on Friday nights already have a fairly established connection to yoga!

We then moved onto the standing poses from primary, laced with interesting variations. Most of the variations seemed to involve adding additional twists and balances to the poses. The konasanas were twisted and bound, legs were lifted off the floor and balance challenged. The prasaritas were taken to the floor in to upavista konasana and stretched into parigasana. Parsvakonasana was taken up into a standing balance, uttitha hasta padangustasana was just that, no whistles or bells really. Ardha baddha padma paschimottanasana was started with bent standing leg, and arms spread outwards, hands pointing upwards (a martial arts Eagle), then the extended leg straightened and the foot bound, before coming right down to the floor and balancing on the heel of the bent leg. Another challenge to the balance! The warriors were taken into ardha chandrasana, which was pretty hard work after all of the extra bits that were added in through the standing sequence. We finished off with a short closing sequence of backbends, some shoulder stand variations which I didn’t really manage to pick up as it was hard to see him demonstrate them, then impossible to untangle the concepts whilst upside down. We finished with a 15 minute savasana – it was 10pm by that time so my body was winding down for sleeping – it was a good thing I had the coffee beforehand or I might have been there until the morning. Savasana at 10pm is an odd experience especially when you can hear the buzz of human activity outside in the bars and restaurants of Kingly Court.

After the workshop 6 of us went off and had a rather mediocre, but cheap Chinese meal. I was hoping to have the energy to go to the Blues Bar afterwards, but it was close to midnight by the time we finished eating, so we headed home instead, holding on to the thought that just like a yoga practice, the Blues Bar will be there tomorrow and the day after, and the day after, and …..

I am in a bit of a grump today, well, I actually feel better now than I did earlier, having booked myself onto a Danny Paradise workshop tomorrow night, with some other yogi friends.

Anyway, I went to bed nice and early again last night then woke at 4.45. I should have just gone to the shala, but instead tried to get back to sleep; I was awake until about 20 minutes before my alarm, then had to go through waking up all over again!

I then went out to get the bus to the station and found a big hole in the road (thanks Thames Water) and the bus stop closed. I had to walk to the next bus stop, missed the bus, and then the train that I usually get. I then got queue jumped at the shala. There were lots of people waiting when I arrived so I pottered around rather than sit in the queue. The lady after me must have thought she was in the queue before me, so went in in my place.

When I started practising I couldn’t let got of all the little irritants I had picked up during my morning, so practice was pretty mediocre. I also ended up by the radiator; I could have moved, but thought my bad mood might be better contained at the side of the shala Everything was somewhat half hearted, particularly as the top of my left hamstring / buttock is sore at the moment, and also the side of my right knee when lotusing, right on the top of the joint. I hardly even broke into a sweat, which is most unlike me.

Hopefully things will feel better tomorrow as I will do morning practice and Danny Paradise, I expect. Well, unless tonight is a super fantastic night at dancing and I stay out all night

It’s moon day, I could have had a lie in, but as usual I woke up pretty early. It’s always nice to get up at a leisurely pace though, have a cup of coffee and some breakfast before leaving home.

I’m feeling pretty shattered today, after a late night on Sunday at 606 followed by another late one dancing last night. I could do with some rest so the plan is to leave the office early (5.30?) tonight, go home and chill out. I know I can’t lie in so I might as well at least go to bed early.

Dancing last night was lots of fun. It has taken 6 months to get this enjoyable, but now I am at the point where I can follow the lead of most of the people I dance with. There are a few who still seem to be dancing a totally different dance, like this slightly letchy foreign man who I would say is in his 50s who dances with me every time, but doesn’t seem to stick to any of the conventional 6 count or 8 count steps.

When I left last night I said to my friends that I would see them in two weeks, of course thinking about there being another Tuesday moonday coming up, but then remembered today that I have booked myself onto an 8am breakfast seminar that day about marketing legal services. A necessary evil, I think, but I don’t think it counts for CPD….

Not much else to report really, it only being Tuesday and there being no practice!