It's pretty difficult after having been gone first for 7 days for teacher training and then for a week at Microsoft to pull the usual "Sunday Morning Yoga" off. Sunday Morning Yoga is when I tell/ask DH to please be home from surfing in time for me to make it to Encinitas... rather than push my luck (you know, especially given the new bling), I chose to go to a later first series class here locally. I had a relatively good practice considering the food I've eaten this week (aka The Microsoft Diet), the two bottles of wine consumed on Friday night and the overall craziness of my weekend. The instructor had me stop doing chatarungas because, yes, they are that bad. Instead she had me drop to my knees, into cobra, then into upward dog. To some degree, I'm just not convinced that my chatarungas are ever going to be nice/correct/lovely/whatever. My shoulders round in naturally, I'm weak in the biceps likely from the hyperextension of my elbows (I really should post a picture of that). Where for some people, lotus is a distant glimpse of practice, this is where I struggle and likely always will to some extent. The question that comes to mind when I have an instructor so adamant about a particular pose with me is "So, do I stop doing the practice I've been given because I can't do this core thing correctly?" I never know the answer really but I have to assume that what I'm told to do in Mysore is what I should do (and, believe me, I've been told in Mysore that I need to work there but it is a practice). A comment the instructor made today was that when you go to another instructor and you say that you practice with InstructorX, the instructor blames all of your "issues" on your teacher. I wonder that this is really true? I almost felt like I shouldn't be saying anyone is my teacher (maybe no one is except myself). Doesn't everyone have places in their practices where they are working? Doesn't everyone have things they just don't do that well or are still working out? Of course, I'm also known for reading more than what is there in things people say to a class so I might be projecting my own fears. Of note in my physical practice today was only that I actually got my leg all the way up in Trivikrmasana (after Uthita Pasta...) on one side by myself.

Today The Daughter announced that she no longer wants to wear "diapers" to bed at night. Moving out of the diaper stage seems like such a... well... historic event... like the next stage of whatever is going to come has started. Married 10 years and our second child is no longer anywhere near being a baby. Chapter 2.