A New Week and a New Pose

My teacher gave me a new pose today - supta vajrasana. I have to say, it's one of those poses that doesn't look too difficult when other people are doing it, but is actually a lot harder when you do it. Anyway, it's something that will keep me quite occupied for the next few weeks and months.

I've also uploaded a picture of what my kapotasana looks like. When I practice on my own, I can touch my toes. With my teacher's help, I can grab my heels. But I've got quite a way to go before I can grab my heels unassisted. Which brings me to something from the past. I used to do a lot of Chinese classical dance as a teenager (which of course was a LONG time ago). There was a strong emphasis on flexibility training, and we used to do all manners of backbends, including poses that were very similar to kapotasana. I used to be able to bend backwards and hold my heels at one shot, without even thinking or trying hard. Fifteen years down the road, my mind still remembers what it feels like to be able to get into the pose without effort, but too bad my body has gotten stiffer. It's going to take time go regain that degree of flexibility, but I'll keep working on it.

In the past week, I've been feeling a lot of soreness in my arms. Cutting out the vinyasas between the left and right side of each seated pose helped to a certain extent, but the soreness is still there, and perhaps even increasing. I'm a bit perplexed because I haven't even started learning the more intense arm balances in second series. If you've encountered a similar issue with sore arms and found a remedy, I'd love to hear about it.

My Yoga Journey

I love Ashtanga yoga. It's hard work, but it's also a beautiful sequence of asanas. And most important of all, it keeps me grounded, healthy and happy.

I was first introduced to Ashtanga in 2002. For the next five years, I was pretty much a "weekend Ashtangi", attending led primary classes on Saturdays and Sundays. I enjoyed the practice, but found it difficult to find the time for practice during the weekdays. But last year, I moved to a new city and found a yoga shala within 10 minutes' walk from my apartment and office, and started going to mysore class 2-3 times a week. More recently, I've been attending mysore class 5 times a week. About two months ago, my teacher started me on second series, and I'm now up to Kapotasana.

So why blog? Now that I'm practising more intensively, I also spend more time thinking about the asanas (especially the ones that I find particularly challenging), and looking for ways to do them better. I came across the blogs of many other like-minded ashtangis (btw, there are some really good tips out there on how others have conquered poses) and thought it would be neat to be part of this ashtangi blogger community.

I marvel at people who practice 6 days a week practice. 5 days a week is as much as I can handle right now. I practice on Days 1-3, take Day 4 off (my body is really sore at this point), resume practice on Days 5-6, and Day 7 is my teacher's day off so there is no mysore class. Perhaps it's a matter of building up strength and stamina over time, but for now I'm happy with this frequency.

Since adding second series up to kapotasana on top of primary series, I've been feeling more tired from the practice. I think it's largely due to the rather intense back-bends. I still feel great after the practice, but my body feels a lot more "worked" and requires more sleep to recover. I spoke to my teacher about this, and she suggested that I skip the vinyasas between the right and left side of each seated pose (but keep the vinyasa when moving from say Marichasana A to Marichasana B). I'm also making a more conscious effort to relax when working on the backbends (I think some of the tiredness might've stemmed from backbend anxiety). Both measures seem to be alleviating the tiredness.