Last week was a tough week on the mat. I should have taken a few days off due to LH but I was too determined to practice. The end result were a few terrible practices and a battle with my ego. It never bothered me before but last week I got insanely jealous when I noticed a few shalamates cross their feet behind their head in supta kurmasana. As a result I found myself questioning my progress over the past six months or so. Thankfully my hormones reverted back to normal and I was able to resume my normal practice without my ego or jealously getting the best of me.
This week I've been consistently binding on both sides of marichyasana d and I've been doing the fancy exit in marichyasana a about 70% of the time. The latter really depends on how cooperative my left hip is feeling. I've also been binding fairly consistently in kurmasana with assistance of course. Two weeks ago if someone told me that would be the case I would have laughed hysterically. On Monday I did kurmasana and attempted to move into supta kurmasana because an assist never came. As I started to wiggle my feet JB came over and had me do the pose again from the beginning. I may have grimaced internally, perhaps externally as well as I proceeded to put myself into the pose. To my surprise JB was able to cross my feet in front of me for the first time! Later in the day when I told one of the assistants of my breakthrough she said to me "I've been wanting to do that to you for some time now." I thought her response was priceless.
On Wednesday I practiced a few hang backs for the first time in a few days and I definitely felt that the bend was getting a little deeper and ever so much closer to the floor. As I came up from the first attempt JB was there watching me and I got an approving nod from him. He had me try it again with his assistance and he pretty much had me go all the way down to the ground before he stepped in to spot me. I was forced to take a leap of faith and it didn't feel terrible. Unassisted drop backs are coming, I can feel it, hauling myself back up however is a completely different story.
The last holdout in my practice is kukkutasana. It's the only pose that I simply can't do. It's baffling because I can lift my body weight in other poses without a problem. I can't have it all I suppose.
