I woke up this morning around 5 something... Since I was up before the alarm I hemmed and hawed in bed "Mhmmm so I go down and make some coffee? No, no, that's silly... no yesterday I could feel the liquid in my stomach and there's no way I could do kapotasana with that in my belly... kapotasana...man, I have to do that today... maybe I should drink coffee, maybe it will give me energy... mhmm.. maybe I should take the Motrin and my back will feel more open... well now it's 5:40... maybe I should just go to practice at 7 instead of 6:30... if I drank coffee would that make it better? What if I only drank a bit of it?" In the end, I got out of bed at 6:15, threw on clothes and drove to practice just like normal. No Coffee, no Motrin.

When I got there there were already a few people in the room aside from the pranayama practitioners. The others were just generally stretching... I sorta felt bad starting my practice but, I gotta do what I gotta do. As soon as I started they all started too. I noted that I do a lots less Sun Salutations... I usually do 4As and 3Bs. I'm not sure if I really "need" to do 5 of each anymore. As long as I'm focused, I'm heated up and the hamstrings are working. Is it overkill to do 5 and 5? Or am I just being lazy?

Man I could not get bound in Supta K today. I got a nice adjustment but I really wanted to say, hey if you just put my leg under my bun (I usually wear my hair in a bun) then I can get it further back there and probably keep them off the ground... but I couldn't utter a sound and so my hair got in the way and I couldn't keep them lifted. I did, however, have what felt like a glorious Titibhasana out of Supta k today... I can almost get all the way back into Bakasana from this now but the lean forward still really digs deep into the pecs... and, of course, I'm the line person on the planet that can't figure out how to jump out of Bakasana.

Second series felt great today actually. Kapotasana wasn't even so bad although I did hem and haw a bit over going into it. I got down there, got my feet and held it a couple breaths before I got the adjustment up my feet... I think I still held onto that for 5 breaths and then I came up... no drama. 3 backbends...tried to stand up, fell... Tim was sitting next to me. I'm having one of those completely useless moments where I wonder "the why" of my teacher. If I so much as stumble on a standup, boom, I'm doing dropbacks. I fell, laid back down, went to come up when I felt his leg there and I looked up and was like "oh... you're here" --- I don't know if this is a message but on average, if I don't make that first standup, I'm not given the opportunity to dropback unassisted.

As I was recovering on my mat I saw Liz doing an effortless and beautiful rendition of kapotasana... Tiff was next to her and I gave her my best "that sucks" face (ala KJS' backbend comic) and then made a rude gesture in total joking fashion. Tiff laughed out loud, told Liz, Liz laughed out loud and then Tim says "Alright, what's going on over here?" Like good 5 year olds we said "Nothing, nothing..." Ah the jealous ego rears it's ugly head...

I bought a rug today. I've never liked practicing on the rugs as I've always felt like I was slipping but I've noticed that by the time I get to Ustrasana now, I'm really sweaty (I never used to sweat) and my knees slip a bit or my head. I bought a bright orange AYC one... I hope it works.

I was so disengaged about coming to work today that I stood and talked to C for awhile after practice and ended up being a few minutes "late" coming in. One of the girls from Tulum is here for a couple days and I really wanted to ask her out to coffee but realized I can't do that type of thing anymore... now I have The Job...

Moon should be coming today... and a moonday on Thursday... maybe I can will it to wait until Wednesday... mind over matter? mind over body?

Last night I was thinking about something JMS said two years ago to Guruji. He said "Thank you for teaching Tim Miller Ashtanga Yoga." The hard truth is that I probably won't get to go to India anytime soon. I can daydream about it but the cold harsh reality is that I'm a mother with two small children and a full-time job and there's simply no way on this planet I could ever justify to my husband going to India. Not only financially but time wise either with the kids or without. My experiences with Guruji have been enough to fill my soul and solidify my commit to the tradition and that's good enough for me. Never say never but, for now, I need to hang up the idea hat and put the hat rack in the closet.