Is This What Nerve Cleansing Feels Like?

Today's practice was interesting to say the least. I was excited to get on my mat this morning to give my shortened practice a try but it didn't seem that much shorter. Well that's sort of a lie. It did feel a little bit shorter and less physically taxing but I managed to somehow let my practice take up the whole two hours that I allotted myself. Something else for me to work on I suppose.

What I'm finding is that the back bends of second series aren't so physically taxing per se but after kapo and supta vajrasana I feel completely wrung out and I curled up into a ball on the front of my mat feeling nauseated after each pose. Supta vajrasana was especially fun today because I was on the verge of tears after I came out of that one. Oh and it took about 12 minutes for me to regain any feeling and sensation in my hands. I also felt like a complete failure doing that pose because I was unable to hold on to my feet at all during that pose. It seems like every muscle in my back is getting worked these days and it's reminiscent of how my hamstrings would feel when I was learning primary. Each day would be successively worse in terms of soreness in my hamstrings and my ability to fully execute most of the forward bends. I guess my back is the new hamstrings. The saddest thing about this whole situation is that my hamstrings still get pretty sore after each practice so it's not like the back soreness has replaced the hamstring soreness. I'm just sore all over these days.

One positive development today was that I only did laghu vajrasana once today. I got my head pretty close to the floor (it may have even touched at one point) and I hoisted myself back up fairly gracefully. I didn't give it another go in an effort to conserve some energy.

During assisted drop backs with JB today "we" walked my hands pretty close to my feet. I touched my hands down on the forth exhale and he had me stay there for a few breathes while he straightened out my feet. He then instructed me to walk my hands in some more and THEN he started to count from one. I used to enjoy assisted back bending with JB because it would give me a great buzz that lasted throughout the day however, today I just wanted to puke after all was said and done.

If there's one thing that this practice has taught me is that I know that in a few weeks time my body will adjust to these new asanas and things won't be so terribly bad but from where I stand now I'm in a dark dark place and I don't see the light yet. 

No Benefit, Incorrect Method and Splitting

I fought off nausea throughout this morning's practice. As if the practice isn't hard enough on it's own, throw a little nausea into the mix and practice was a rip roaring good time this morning. I practiced next one of my buddies this morning and as we both watched the Ashtanga Police video yesterday there were a lot of "incorrect method" and "no benefit" comments thrown around. We are indeed a bunch of bad yogis.

Other than the nausea practice went relatively smoothly and I was able to bind supta kurmasana again for the third day in a row. I think the bind is a direct result of the nausea I've been feeling the past couple of days and the lack of appetite. I did get yelled at again for my breathing in kurmasana though. But to my credit I WAS breathing for the first five breaths. A shalamate taught me a very helpful tip a few days agao for binding in pashasana. She basically told me to use my hand to move my abdominal flesh out of the way as I twist which helps to bring the shoulder lower down on the leg and thus encouraging a deeper twist. So far it seems to work and I've been binding both sides on my own. The next frontier in that pose will definitely be to try to work on getting the heels flat which will probably happen in another lifetime. Surprisingly krounchasana is coming along nicely and I'm able to touch forehead/chin to knee on both sides these days. My hamstrings have been so sore from practice the past couple of weeks I'm not entirely sure how that came about. I'm able to lower down much further in laghu vajrasana these days as well. It's not the prettiest of asanas for me but it is definitely coming.

Sweet sweet kapotasana on the other hand feels like death. It's not even that it's that particularly painful of a pose but after I exit out of the pose I feel completely, absolutely and utterly spent. Today's attempt was particularly intense as JB held me up trying to get a good hip extension I suppose before bringing my hands to my heels. By the time I actually got into the pose my quads and abdominal muscles were on fire and I'm pretty sure the people practicing to my left and right saw smoke coming off of my body.I told JB that kapo makes me feel like my muscles are being ripped from my bones and he basically said that's what happens when one has such a muscular build. I told him that I would happily be a flexible noodle if I had the choice. As I was laying in a heap on my mat trying to recover from kapo he tells me to get up and prepare for the next pose supta vajrasana. I think I'll eventually grow to like that pose, even though it's essentially a limbless back bend, once I'm able to hold onto my feet as I bend back.

After that endurance effort, to my surprise JB told me that I can start doing half primary each day, alternating which half I do every other day. I was happy to hear him tell me that because my practice has been inching up towards the 2.5 hour mark. This shall be an interesting change to my practice as I've become quite attached to primary since I've been practicing it almost daily for the last year or so. I wonder what my dear hammies will think about this and if they will tolerate it at all. I guess only time will tell.