Good and Bad Practices

When practice is good, it can be really really good but when I have a bad day on the mat it can feel like hell. Thursday was one of those days in which I felt neither strong nor particularly flexible and on any given day I can at least count on one of those to help me through my practice. Just to get through the suryas felt like an arduous task. As I moved through the asanas it felt as though I was battling against this invisible barrier of resistance. I think part of the reason why Thursday's practice was so unbearable was because I dealing with some life issues and I brought them with me onto the mat. Another reason I'm guessing is because my body and muscles were just tired because as of two weeks ago I've start doing vinyasas between each sides of certain asanas.

What I'm also discovering is that adding some second series poses to my practice makes me extremely tired. I was given bhekasana on Tuesday and after a good hearted attempt at the pose I just collapsed on my mat when it was over. That pose is very deceiving in terms of it's difficulty level.

Friday's led primary on the other hand felt absolutely amazing. Granted I was sweating buckets from early on in the practice and the room wasn't even that warm. I felt strong and powerful as I transitioned from standing to chaturanga, dare I say it felt like I was floating through the air at times? I had wonderful savasana at the end of practice and I was able to get through the rest of my hectic day with ease.

Today I pampered myself with a castor oil bath. I was initially skeptical about it's benefits but I noticed a distinct difference in my practice after the first time I tried it. This will be my go to remedy for a tired and worn out body and I recently determined that I'm allergic to Epsom salts. Perhaps I'm mistaken regarding the cause of my eczema flareups, I hope I am, but right now they seem to be at the root cause.

Two More Down

I really do love my Sunday Mysore practices because it's the only day that I really get to enjoy a leisurely practice and not be stressed about getting to work on time. I'm not thrilled that the studio shortened the Sunday time slot but I am confident that will change in some time. Practice felt pretty good today and even though I'm still not 100% I feel as though my practice is at the same level it was before I took my unscheduled hiatus.

For the first time since getting the pose I attempted pashasana on my own and that was a most humbling experience. One of the assistants come over to help out and she managed to wrangle me into the pose on the first side but the second side was a complete failure. After seeing what a failure it truly was JB came over to give her some pointers on how to do the adjustment. What this meant for me was that I had to do the pose over again from the beginning while he walked her through it. Any pose that requires the hands, feet, legs and torso of a teacher to get the student into the pose probably isn't worth doing in my book. At one point I was almost tempted to say that they could have the pose back because I am not ready for it. But I didn't and I endured the suffering and the increasingly sore calf muscles.

Because he was feeling extra masochistic generous JB gave me the next two poses in the series Shalabhasana A and B two fairly straightforward poses that I would practice regularly during my pre-ashtanga days.

After that it was on to back bending. Urdhva dhanurasana is feeling a lot better but I still omit any attempt to lift myself up from the pose. I practiced hang backs in earnest for the first time in about a month and they felt good as well. After one pretty decent attempt one of my stalemates and occasional assistant told me to just go for it because I'm almost there. While her words were very encouraging still lack the courage to go all in. I think the other thing holding me back is my fear of re-injury. I think that once I get passed the latter fear I'll be able to attempt drop backs a bit more ambitiously. Stay tuned til then.

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Friday Led with Full Vinyasa

Today was led class at the shala. For the record, I don't like doing a led class every Friday. We used to have led classed every other week but that changed a few months ago. I decided to take it easy today during class and to only vinyasa between poses and not between sides. I didn't want to irritate the already tweaky rib cage. This was all fine and good until JB announced that he wanted to do a little experiment. He wanted us to practice full vinyasa between a few poses. So basically my plan to conserve energy and to not over exert myself was completely tossed out the window. One of the things that I'm trying to work on in my practice is floating back. And while I'm still pretty far off I have made some serious progress in terms of leaning forward into my arms and bearing some weight there instead of just kicking back with brute force. Due to this new area of focus in my vinyasa I can't pass up and opportunity to practice my new technique.

To make up for all the energy I didn't conserve during my practice today and due to some unpleasant things that went down at work I decided to treat myself to a massage this afternoon. The massage felt great but I'm really concerned by the amount of knots in my back. As she massaged away I felt knot after knot after knot in my upper back and shoulders and I'm not sure if this is normal or just par for the course. Things do feel a little looser now but it's definitely not a cure all. I will most likely do a castor oil bath tomorrow to loosen things up for Sunday's practice. I'm pretty sure that any agreement that I had with my hamstrings has been nullified now that I've started practicing krounchasana. 

And So Begins 2nd

I do indeed think the intercostals are improving and dare I say recovered. The reason I say this is because I had an even less gimpy practice yesterday and was given pashasana and survived!

I’ve been secretly wanted to start second series for quite some time now. And if I’m going to be truly honest, I’ve been jealous of all my shalamates that are currently practicing second series. I feel like there are more advanced practitioners in the room than there are beginners, not that this is a competition or anything. Granted my primary isn’t perfect but it has come a long way (thank you hamstrings for your cooperation) and I think my back bending would be even further along if I wasn’t sidelined for a month due to my intercostals injury.

So after setu bandasana I was putzing around on my mat very slowly preparing to vinyasa and proceed to back bending when JB came over and said “we’re going to try a new pose today called pashasana”. I wanted to squeal with excitement but I didn't only in my head. Before giving me the pose he said something along the lines of “given your recent instability in the chest area, it’s very important that you breathe getting into and during this pose”. My internal response was "ok how bad can this actually be". I've seen numerous shalamates contort themselves into this pose and it didn’t seem so bad. I knew that getting my heels to the floor would be a challenge and I knew that the bind would be difficult as well. What I wasn’t prepared for was the intense twist that soon followed thanks to the “help” of JB. Holy smokes batman. My second attempt tomorrow will be interesting.

After that came krounchasana and again I was thinking to myself, how bad can this actually be. All of the forward bends in primary series surely had to have lengthened my hamstrings no? Well needless to say I was once again shocked by the difficulty and intensity of the pose. Even JB made a comment about it being a relatively challenging pose. And to think that I've been looking forward to being given kapo and I can barely handle the first two poses of intermediate.

It is nice though to have something new to work on once again which will give my practice a renewed focus. However, I'm not looking forward to the new aches and pains associated with working on new poses nor am I looking forward to the longer practices.

Hot Shala and Trigger Points

In NYC in went from rainy monsoon season to to mid-July summer temps in the matter of a week. Yesterday the temperature in the shala was a whooping 93 degrees. Of course this wasn't intentional but apparently someone left the heat on in the hot room and the mysore class had to suffer the consequences. I don't know if it's because I was doing my gimpy practice or not but it didn't actually feel that warm. Had I not seen the temperature on the thermostat I never would have guessed it was that hot.

Today on the other hand I felt beads of sweat inside my sports bra as soon as I began my second surya namaskar A. Also practice was a lot less gimpy today as I started to incorporate some jump backs into my practice. I also managed to do the lifts between each iteration of navasana which I've been avoiding the past couple of practices. I even tried binding on each side of marichyasana d with no ill affects and I got a nice assisted bind in supta kurmasana, both hands and feet. The only thing I omitted from practice was back bending. I opted for bridge pose instead of the full on urdhva dhanurasana. Overall practice felt good.

I've concluded that my muscle strain is pretty much healed and any residual pain and discomfort that I'm feeling is the result of trigger points in my intercostal region. You can pretty much feel two lumpy muscles, one under my right breast and the other on the outer left side. I've taken to giving myself trigger point massages using my foam roller and why they are neither pleasant nor relaxing it seems to be doing the trick. I lay on my foam roller and roll until I feel discomfort and I hold it in that position for as long as I can bear. I do this a few times in a row and I try to do it several times a day as well. So now instead of feeling deep intense stabbing pains in my chest region I feel sore/tight muscles instead which I'll take any day over the former. Looking forward to tomorrow's practice and then the moon day on Wednesday.

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Different Phases of Coping

Due to my injury this past month has been very challenging. I haven't been able to practice at the level that I've grown accustomed to or even at all on most days for that matter. The days I did manage to practice I only succeeded in re-injuring myself.

For several weeks prior to my injury I was kind of feeling like I hit a plateau in my practice and I was left wanting more. Instead of having breakthrough after breakthrough it felt like same ole same ole. I guess I wasn't specific enough with what I was looking for out of my practice which is probably why the universe handed me a big heaping of intercostal neuralgia myalgia to cope with. And cope with I did not initially. My initial response was denial and I continued to practice as usual with the same determination and that didn't go over well at all. I'm pretty sure that's the reason why I'm still not 100% recovered almost a month after the fact.

After denial was no longer an effective coping mechanism I turned to anger and frustration. I took a few days off from practice and once the pain subsided a little I'd be back on my mat. And because I couldn't practice at my pre-injury levels (and boy did I try) this led to a few teary breakdowns during savasana.

The next time I stepped on my mat was my gimpiest practice ever. I practiced slowly and removed almost every flourish that one can think of. I think at that point it would have been difficult to call it an ashtanga practice. But the fact is I was pain free up until it came time for urdhva dhanurasana. I went all out with that pose and after the third one I was barely able to complete the finishing sequence. Needless to say that I only made it through the standing postures the following day. I almost broke down again in savasana but I wouldn't let myself and I decided to accept my practice for what it was that day. And amazingly by the time I left the shala I had the same positive energy that I normally have when I do my full practice.

And so I'm continuing to give it my gimpiest best during practice and to challenge my ego when she says "come on jump back you can do it". And instead of listening to that voice which I have too many times in the past I step back gingerly and proceed to have a pain free practice. I will continue to do so until I am 100% pain free and the threat of re-injury is minimal.
Who cares if it will take me another six months to build up the flexibility to be able to bind in marichyasana d again.

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Manduka Equa Towel Review

It's no secret that I sweat big time during my ashtanga practice. Perhaps it was a secret but it no longer. When I realized how sweaty my morning Mysore practice can get I went out and bought a yogitoes towel to absorb my sweat droplets and to keep my yoga mat from turning into a slip 'n slide.

I originally went with the yogitoes towel because I was convinced in the power of the little silicone-esque dots on the bottom that would hold it in place. For some time I was content with my purchase. When I purchased my manduka mat however, that's when I first began to notice the limitations of my sweat absorbing, slip reducing towel. The mat outsized the towel by several centimeters along the perimeter. In and of itself this wasn't terrible but it was something that I noticed and felt each time I placed my hands down on my mat. Despite its slight shortcomings I wasn't in the market to replace my existing towel.

That was until I saw the manduka equa towel on sale. I ordered two figuring that a sweaty girl like me could always do with extra towels around. When the towel first arrived I was very pleased that it didn't come with the "wash two times before using" instruction. I don't know about you but when I get something new I want to use it immediately. I brought it to the shala the following day and fell instantly in love. It covered the entire surface of my mat and felt as smooth as silk. It didn't bunch up or move at all during the duration of my practice. A few days later I was forced to use my old yogitoes mat because my equa towel was being laundered and the first thing that struck me was how un-smooth it felt due to the grippy bits on the bottom and I was instantly put off.

And there you have it going forward I will make sure that I don't ever have to practice without my equa towel again.

Practice Report: well there really is no practice to report on. My intercostal myalgia neuralgia isn't completely healed and I think forcing myself to practice last week did more harm than good and that got me thinking of ahimsa or doing no harm. If one cannot practice ahimsa with oneself how can one even image applying such a practice to others. For now i'm seeking acupuncture treatments and staying out of the shala until I am 100% pain free. I may attempt a modified version of my practice at home when things improve slightly but the shala means bad news because I always want to give it my all when I'm there not some half assed version of my practice.


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