Advancing

As we went out with Chris and Anne last night, I took a different yoga class instead of my normal double class. This is the first time I've tried Flow Yoga's advanced classes - just by coincidence, really, as normally I take the easier classes because they are at more suitable time. So here was I thinking that advanced probably just meant that we would do more demanding poses from the primary series - turns out that the class included poses from the second and third series as well. These are poses I've sometimes seen photos of and thought "how the hell are you supposed to get into that?", and now I know. The theory anyway.

It was an interesting class though, and I like to try out new things so I enjoyed trying to get into the new poses. What annoys me though is that more "advanced" ashtanga gets, the more there seem to be poses that require balancing on the hands. I'd love to try those poses, and sometimes do - but I'm always stopped by my wrist, my stupid disability which means I can't put any weight directly on my hands. I have picked the worst possible style of yoga for my body - I think there are 72 asanas in primary series, and 75 vinyasas... and each vinyasa contains a chatarunga or two (which is basically a push-up). But I'm stubborn and I've learned a way to do those without injuring myself though, and I've recently even started doing jump-backs which I totally love.

On today's primary series class Jason said - after taking the micky out of me by saying "oh, it's kolibri, what a surprise" because I'm there every day - that we should concentrate on bandhas today. So that's what I did - and my balancing poses were better than they have been in months. Just shows how important it is - each time I started wobbling, I just sucked the tummy in and squeezed the bandhas - and voila! Little thing, but felt like a big thing.

Another big thing was when I realised that I could actually bind in Marichyasana B - just imagine that couple of weeks ago I couldn't even sit up while having the other foot in lotus. I give all the credit for this for my yin practice.

Tomorrow - the Paul Grilley workshop begins, starting with a practice with the guruji. Really looking forward to it.