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September 29, 2003
Moon Day
Today is my first moon day so no yoga practice. I've been very spirited about my yoga practice lately so it is kinda a bummer but I'm trying to remember to be mindful of what taking a break is all about. I still need to find a good leans-towards-holistic female doctor (OKGR know one?) because since having The Daughter my moons are just horrible -- even if I wanted to ignore the suggestion to sit out moon days from yoga, I couldn't because for at least the first day standing is difficult. I was hoping it was hormonal and weaning would make an impact but, so far, no go.
Posted by shanti at 9:01 PM | Comments (2)
September 26, 2003
Forward Moving
Today I took my new neighbor to my first Ashtanga teacher's class. It's a small private studio here locally. The teacher practiced with Tim for years but stopped after an adjustment sent her into a year of surgeries and healing (Janu Shirasana C) She still goes to the Ashtanga Center just not as regularly, doing her own practice now. She isn't the best Ashtanga teacher but what she offers is a really safe, nuturing and spiritual place for beginning Ashtanga students to practice. I had a great practice there today...just very focused and I love the heated small room. What was so noticeable though was just how far I've progressed in my practice -- sometimes I can't see it... but going back to the studio where, when I left, I couldn't do vinyasas throughout a practice without dropping to my knees at some point and then seeing myself able to do it throughout.... having the teacher actually say in my ear "Oh my gosh, your back..I can't believe the difference!" I remember how far I've come in my practice and I'm happy to be where I'm at... still learning, still finding out what it's all about and happy to be doing so.
On Wednesday night at practice, I managed to actually JUMP THROUGH with my leg back for Trianga Mukhaikapada Paschimottanasana. I was so very excited because it means I'm actually getting somewhere... it will likely still be years before I can jump through but I've got my pink toe in the door. I was also able to jump through folding my legs Indian style through my arms instead of behind them like I normally do. I figured out that I have to shorten my downward dog stance and spred my hands a little wider in order to accomplish this... I've never watched if other people have to do this and it may be completely incorrect so I need to ask someone (Kiran?).
In other wordly news, we are so pleased with The Son's school. I never thought I'd be saying this about public school but aside from the "card turning" crowd control mechanism, I really like it and The Son truly loves it. He jumps out of the car and literally runs to school every morning. I can't quite say I'm at peace with the decision--- I feel like it is something we are going to have to explore every year but, for now, it feels right. I am in the classroom every Wednesday -- The Husband and I are sharing so we both get time in the classroom. The Daughter is loving preschool... there was no question about that and even though she's the youngest child in the class (she was let in early because everyone felt she was so ready) she has really just fit in perfectly with all the kids.
Work is going well ... very very busy. My boss is fond of giving me new projects now -- none of them having to do with the skills I was hired for and, in fact, mostly things I have no idea how to do. This week I'm tasked with authenticating logins to an ASP.NET application through our Novell LDAP server and using LDAP to tell me details about each user for the web app. It was like asking me to write an essay in Italian (I don't speak or write Italian) but last night I had a breakthough and I got the first page done :) I am learning so many new things and working with so many new technologies...should I ever decide to leave this firm, my resume will be looking much better than it did before.
Life is such a journey..sometimes I stop and realize just how far I've come instead of always focusing on where I'm going. Today is one of those days.
Posted by shanti at 12:21 PM | Comments (4)
September 22, 2003
Closed, Purist or Snob
I consider myself a fairly open person. I don't consider myself a snob and I wouldn't say I am an Ashtanga purist but I really don't like classes that veer a lot from the traditional sequence *unless* I go to a class expecting it to be an improv class. Maybe my mind is too closed, too bogged down with expectation but if I go to an Ashtanga class -- level 1, level 2, prep or primary -- I just expect to follow the basic gist of the primary series and I find it disconcerting when something else happens. Tonight (Kiran -- what happened?) was a sub at my usual ashtanga prep class. The sub was someone we didn't know at all and she started off the class with some stretching sorta something before we began sun salutations. From there we did 4 As and 4Bs but with additional "stuff" in them -- first just rolling onto the balls of your feet, then coming down onto forearms, then other stuff... From there we did Utkatasana? then a twisting posture where you are flat footed bent down like in Pashasana but twisting in prayer position... then back to a regular primary series... the seated were the basics -- but then we threw in Ardha Matsyendrasana instead of Marichyasana D. The finishing sequence was all different -- All in all the class itself was pretty good but I still left feeling disconcerted... One of my classmates said how much he likes having different teachers... I do and I don't. I want the consistency of a practice with a teacher who knows me, my strengths, my weaknesses both mentally and physically. Someone who challenges be consistently. With new teachers all the time, they don't know you, you don't know them and you are trying to get in synch the whole class (at least that's how it feels for me). I like exploring new teachers but it isn't something I want to do all the time. I like knowing that when I got to a class I'm going to do either a regular primary series or a condensed version thereof. I like knowing I'm going to get to headstands instead of finding out there will be no inversions... I like knowing I'm going to get to feel that ah relief with pindasana ... maybe that makes me a snob... I don't know.
Posted by shanti at 8:42 PM | Comments (2)
September 19, 2003
Primary
Today I went to the Level 2/3 First Series class at the Ashtanga Center. One of my gym instructors was on the mat next to me and the room was the least crowded I've ever seen it. I knew before I got there that I was slightly dehydrated... I had worked all morning in The Daughter's classroom (which is all outdoors and hot as hell) and since the kids had a choice between a) fingerpainting, b) shaving cream play or c) golf ball rolling pictures I never got a chance to really hydrate myself... I was sorta tired from the sun and the work before I left but decided I had promised myself to go and was going to go... I actually had a fairly good practice but my wrist started hurting with the handstands... I did get further into kurmasana than I've ever been and I bound all by my little self with all fingers clasped in supta kurmasana. I ended up having to skip half of of the finishing sequence because, although the schedule says the class is done at 1:30, we were still going at 1:45 and I had to be home by 2pm to get the kids.
Whenever I go to a practice like this (i.e., a real one where people have been practicing for quite awhile) I just get this YEARN to figure out how to lightly jump back, lightly jump to your hands, jump through, etc. I practice but I just can't figure it out... I know this must be a bandha/strength thing and I realize how weak I am but surely it will come sometime right?
Posted by shanti at 5:51 PM
September 17, 2003
Improv Class
Today I went to the "ashtanga prep" class at the Ashtanga Center..that's what the schedule says but it is really an improv class. The teacher goes around the room and asks everyone what they'd like to work on today or any particular asana they'd like to throw in. All three times I've been to the class you hear hips, twists and shoulders but today someone threw in backbends and inversions. We started out veering from traditional with triangle -- we did three versions, first regular, then with the arm stretched over the ear and finally with the arm around the back and holding the thigh. Then we moved on to Utthita Parsvakonasana which we did first the regular first series way, then moved the hand to the inner foot with the arm straight up then finally the arm around the back and/or binding the arms around the back/under the leg. What I found in both these variations, more so in the latter, is that I start to falter towards the last two breaths with strength... I'm not used to holding a pose that long. From there we moved through one Prasarita Padottanasana and then into a variation of A... Parsvottanana and Utthita-Hasta-Padangusthasana skipped Ardha Baddha finished standing. During warrior I got my first adjustment -- he adjusted my hand -- I guess it wasn't straight enough and he sorta chuckled as he walked away saying "minor adjustment, there, very minor".... Thenw e moved to the ground where we basically did Dandasana, Paschimottanasana A & B and then moved into some cool stuff. We started in a variation of Purvottasana, knees bent (table top) then raised one leg straight up, held, then cross the heel over the other knee, held and resisted then sat down and stretched out the hip pretty well... Then we did some twisty stuff then Navasana with handstands... we had to do a different method of getting up into the handstand for each one -- first one legged, then the other leg (if you were pushing off with one leg) then with the legs together, then spread wide apart and bringing them together at the top... I have a very difficult time with handstands and cannot put the full weight of my body on my right wrist so I stayed away from doing many of them and just did my regular handstand throughout. A few other hip openers and we did Shalabhasana A & B then into Dhanurasana. Then we moved onto Bhekasana and I realized how off balance my left side is... with my right foot, I can get my heel touching and pretty close with the whole foot but the left side is way tighter... Next came Virasana which, for me, I can barely feel. During this asana the teacher was helping the girl next to me... He was pushing, I think, down somewhere near her chest to try and flatten out the arch... when he came to me he said to her that this is what she was striving for but that most people cannot get down as far as I was that I was very limber...... which really surprised me because I didn't feel like I was down that far... I guess I've never really seen anyone do that posture and so I don't really know what it looks like but I didn't think I was close. When he pushed on me, he said something and I said "I can't even feel it" and he laughed. I can sit with my legs like that for hours I think. After Virasana we did some pretty cool stuff -- We started in headstand position, then pushed over with our feet touching the wall... pushed our feet into the wall and lifted our head off the ground, pushing our shoulders out. This was so great for me in preparation for headstands (even though it was really preparation for backbending) -- it really allowed me to feel the push through the shoulders. Once we did that a few times, we then setup the same but walked our feet down the wall into a backarch, lifted the head, then set the head down, pushed up into a full backbend and from there put one foot back up the wall, pull the other leg up and over and then down from the handstand you were in at that point.... I could do everything but get that second leg over..the pressure on my right wrist prevented me from carrying that weight. The teacher came and helped me a couple times and it felt SO cool... I'm going to have to practice that one against the wall. The class was really fun and I'm going to try to make it to either this class or the Friday first series noon class once a week now that the kids are in school.
Posted by shanti at 3:00 PM | Comments (4)
September 16, 2003
Crowded Rooms
I went to practice yesterday at the club... the teacher was one of the typical health club types.. I don't think she practices with Tim although I'm not sure. I have heard that her style is an exactly replica of her first teacher. The room was so crowded that we literally could not raise our hands to the side. The practice started off okay - 5 As, 5Bs (a lot of the club teachers don't do the full 10 sun sals) but quickly ended up less than an ashtanga prep class. It was probably good for me since I hadn't been practicing much but I still find myself feeling somewhat lopsided when we don't do the majority of the sitting postures. Tomorrow I am supposed to be meeting a friend of mine at the Ashtanga Center for the noon class and I'm hoping to make it there either Thursday or Friday as well since I can't do the first series class on Friday night and am, instead, getting a reading done (my first ever) as a birthday gift from a friend. Speaking of, OKGR, tell your wife to please please offer to teach B's classes while he's gone..I understand he's going away for a couple weeks and doesn't know who he is going to get since M is also going away. I don't know how that works but that would rock.
In work news, my boss has completely pulled me off the project I was originally hired full-time to do and I'm now, apparently, an aspiring ASP.NET developer. All in all, it's very fun but it is also a lot of pressure -- quick turn around times, learning curve... but great experience all the same.
Posted by shanti at 10:11 PM
September 13, 2003
34
Tomorrow is my 34th birthday. Now, I don't ever really have a clear idea of exactly how old I am. I know I'm over 30 somewhere in my head but if you had asked me this year whether I was 32 or 33, I would have had to do the math. So last week when my friend, D, and I went out and he announced to me that I'd be 34, I was sorta blown away. Suddenly I realized how very close to 35 I am and, for some reason, 35 seems like a life changing year. A year in which you begin to enter middle age. Most others believe middle age starts at 40 and maybe they are right. For me, for whatever reason, 35 seems like the end of something... I just can't quite put my finger on what that something is.
Last night The Husband & I stayed at the new Marriott which is about a mile from our house... we had won a free night there at the silent auction for preschool last year. We had dinner, wine and, for my in-the-hip readers, genki before retiring to our room. The idea of staying in the hotel seemed sorta silly to me at first... we live a mile away, the kids were at my mom's so our house was empty... but I do have to admit that the ambiance of a hotel or perhaps it is just the idea of a hotel makes sex all the better.
I'm not sure what we are doing tomorrow - The Husband says it is up to me. I'm debating doing Tim Miller's first series class as my own little birthday present but am worried I won't have the stamina for it as my practice has suffered so much through my project at work. We'll see...
Posted by shanti at 2:12 PM | Comments (9)
September 10, 2003
Breathing In, I float...Breathing Out, I Sink
I just had the coolest experience/experiment in the bathtub... now, before my faithful readers think that baths are the norm around here (i.e., time)... Tomorrow is the first demo of the application I've been working my ass off on for the past few weeks -- and I mean nearly half my ass is gone! So, for my fellow programmers, why am I not hacking away right now? Dear Readers, I actually finished the parameters for my first demo yesterday... minus one 10 minute fix this morning... impossible you say... well, mind you, there is absolutely no error checking whatsoever (and I do mean nary a try{}catch{} throughout) and the database has absolutely no constraints (like you could blow thing up by adding an incorrect row of data directly into a single table) but whatever... the demo is working :) and I'm a girl who decided "Enough Is Enough" tonight I'm taking a bath....
While in the bath, I was just stretching a bit...having skipped yoga to simply relax and do nothing (not such a good thing when you haven't been going regularly but something I needed anyway)... I put my feet behind me, legs folded back and out to the side, knees touching in front... (there is a name for that pose but I can't think of it right now), I grabbed the tops of my feet and began to lift into a very small back arch (so if I were actually capable I could do that Kapotasana asana that is years away).... and as I did so, I exhaled...and I literally sank to the bottom of the pretty large tub I have... and then I inhaled and I came a bit up... then I exhaled and I sank...then I inhaled a little further and rose higher... over and over.... until it hit me... Cool experiment for I got to see just how light the body becomes just via the breath and you, yogis out there know that you are always searching for that lightness in your body through the breath.
If you take that experiment and meditate using a mantra: Breathing In, I Float, Breathing Out, I Sink -- there are so many places you can go.
Posted by shanti at 9:15 PM | Comments (4)
September 4, 2003
Stages & Phases
Yesterday was The Son's first day of kindergarten. He's been so excited all summer that I hadn't really worried at all about him. Tuesday when we had orientation, though, he was very hesitant to enter the class... didn't want to meet the teacher... visibly upset. I stressed for the rest of the day over our decision to send him to school but when we got up in the morning, he was so excited again and as we walked up the stairs to school, all the kids swarming around us, the excitement in the air, the parents all walking up... The Son just glowed. His face was lit up, he was animated and could almost not contain himself. He posed for a picture with the largest smile I think I've ever seen in his life. He walked into his kindergarten class with barely a goodbye... and the door closed. I have to admit, I wasn't crying. I was maybe, at best, a little misty but more because of all the other parent's emotions around me than my own. I was excited but not really sad.
I left the elementary school and took The Daughter to her first day of preschool. I wasn't worried about her at all...she's been so excited to start. My heart was a little weak with her because I've always held the belief that 2.5 is too young for preschool and I've really had to bend my belief given her nature and her strong desire to go. She did great... in fact, she did awesome and she can't wait to go back.
When I picked The Son up, I did get teary. The idea of going to an elementary school to pick up my child was disconcerting. I don't feel like the parent of a elementary school child... in many ways, I still feel like I'm 21. I don't know what I expected to feel like but I've always seen the moms of older kids as more mature, put together, generally more... Nordstrom than I am. The Son loved school -- evidenced by the fact that he was up at the crack of dawn this morning for his second day.
With the start of school, I've had a lot of emotions about the stage of our life. I realize now that my baby years are over. I struggled a lot with this last year when The Husband decided to have his vasectomy... and I had to accept it. With that acceptance I chose to look forward to what is to come outside of the baby years and this feels like the first step to that vision. I'm looking forward to ski trips where I'm not stuck in a hotel room with two small children but, instead, we can all be on the boards together. I look forward to vacations on the beach where The Husband & I can sit next to each other watching our children frolick in the waves. I look forward to white water rafting, hiking... all the things that having younger children make, if not impossible, just completely unfeasible. It's not that I'm not enjoying having a 5 year old and a 2.5 year old. I am. There are so many wonderful things about this age but it is, for me, at least, an age of servitude on my part and little personal freedom. I like my personal freedom and I don't begrudge my servitude. I just want a little of both eventually and its the carrot dangling out there that we've taken the first step into the rest of our lives now. I feel like I can now start to think about the things I'd like to do with that small bit of freedom and start to formulate a plan.... I'd like to take teacher training eventually -- once I can get to some degree of accomplishment in the primary series but that takes a lot more dedication than I can give to my practice right now given my mothering requirements, work requirements and general family requirements. I can see that in a few years that goal isn't intangible... and I like to think about it.
Speaking of...last night was my first yoga class in 3 weeks...and it was good. The class was super crowded with nearly all new faces. I always find it interesting to watch someone who takes their first ashtanga class... they become mildy frustrated during the sun salutations -- especially when we begin Bs for they've just gotten the routine with As then suddenly it is switched up on them... then they struggle with their strength and frustration sets in...just about the time we finish and move on. Then about halfway through the series I hear the sighs and incredulous exclamations as we move into some of the more difficult poses. It is sometimes distracting to me but, for the most part, I'm able to tune it out as background noise. I am always curious to see if they come back...
My practice last night was good but limited. I tried very hard not to overstretch and so I chose a prep class instead of going to the ashtanga center. The prep class was good and I managed to throw in hanumanasana where the instructor chose to put king pigeon and happily touched ground on one side and near on the other. My breath last night was the most noticeable change for me though -- I was really in tune with my breath throughout the entire practice and, more remarkably, it was long and deeper than usual. I worked up a nice sweat but suffered from lack of strength eventually... that's the price I pay for a break now -- I don't lose flexibility, I lose all my (little) strength.
Posted by shanti at 9:25 AM | Comments (2)
September 2, 2003
The End of Summer
I truly cannot believe that the end of summer is already here... of course, living in California, that's only a metaphor for the fact that school is starting and the beaches will have only slightly less people on them during the weekday school hours. Our weekend was spent with family...first one family gathering, then the other. My weekend sorta sucked because we saw my family first and I'm beginning to get the idea that my niece is manipulating my feelings by exaggerating or, maybe even lying, about her homelife situation. This was demonstrated by a dramatic shift in attitude the minute we walked in the door for our family gathering... and some verbal things that she said to me which were different than what she'd indicated to my mother. It sucks to feel like that and I'm at a point now where I believe that we cannot continue to have a triangle of a relationship -- that we all need to get in front of a professional and have someone else mitigate the triangle.
I got a new neighbor over the weekend as well... she asked me immediately about yoga and, to my surprise, she's into ashtanga and jumped up and down when I said that I sometimes visit Tim Miller's studio. She wants to go with me this week and then try the other studios I visit. I haven't practiced in nearly 3 weeks now...it should be a painful week!
Posted by shanti at 12:47 PM