Dog

Latest Iyengar revelation:

Relax the back of the legs back in Adho Mukha Svanasana.

And even though I've been doing this pose for a decade, it was like I'd never thought of this before.

It's been like a miracle all week.

Psoas

I seem to have pulled my psoas. I blame janu shirshasana. Okay, I blame my own bad alignment, or pushing too hard or something, but I'm pretty sure I did it in Janu Shirshasana. I've done it before, and I think it wakes up an old birth-of-my-son injury, so as I'm hobbling around I'm flashing back on the labor process, and that time I got this same injury in an Ashtanga class and it took a month to heal. I'm being pretty careful and cautious, but the muscles are so deep it really gets under my skin (literally) I'm finding myself irritable and tired.

Partner Work

In my Kripalu class we often do Pincha Mayurasana in groups of 3, so that the person in the pose can wobble all they like and get some feedback about their alignment. Generally I need the same feedback in every pose "tuck your tailbone and pull in the lower ribs." So I'm tucking and tucking and still not aligned properly. I've got 2 classmates and the teacher all trying to explain what is out of alignment, but I'm not getting it. Sometimes it's hard to think when you are inverted, so I come down and my classmate explains that my legs were tilted toward my front.

All of a sudden, after how many weeks of hearing my Iyengar teacher explain that the femurs root back while the tailbone tilts down, I suddenly understand. This need is exposed when your feet are skyward because the floor is not there to hold your legs straight up and down. It's one of those yoga enlightenment moments when the sun dawns and the light bulbs come on. Now if only I can do it...

Arriving

This morning I just could not arrive in my practice. It was an Anusara class that I love, but I was so caught in "future planning" mode that I just could not come back from June and May and later-this-week. Some people dwell in the past when their mind wanders, I dwell in the future. I don't think I finally arrived in my breath until Savasana.

To Run or Not to Run

Last year when it got cold and the sidewalks got icy I joined the neighborhood gym for the winter. This year we are conserving money, and really running on a treadmill is like... running on a tread mill. It's practically a metaphor for it's own tedium. Instead I am doing yoga on days too cold to run, and consequently I haven't run in 2 weeks. It was the warmest day of the week today, which means hovering around 20 at running time. And gray. I rolled out my yoga mat again.

By some lovely serendipity, I had scheduled myself months ago to preach my first ever yoga sermon "Lessons learned on the Mat." I've got my stack of yoga books by the computer, and am finally finishing Iyengar's Light on Life. I was looking for a story to tell during the "Lesson for All Ages" and realized that we should just do a few asanas together. I am more nervous about this than the sermon. What poses will hold the interest of our elementary school kids and be accessible to our elders?

I am a little worried about how hard that first run will be when the temperatures get back up into the high 20s or even 30s. But living seasonally is something I believe in, so perhaps winter is the season of yoga. Maybe I just need to have faith that the sun will come back in the spring and I will burst out in my running shoes like those little crocuses bursting through the frozen ground.