A history of LI Ashtangini yoga, part one

Since I can't think of anything to post today, I think I'll go for that yoga history thing I mentioned yesterday. When A and I were still 'just friends' he used to bug me all the time about trying yoga. Of course, I was like 'whatever, that's some weird California thing you do'. By the time I was 30 or 31 I had gained a lot of weight. I've never been an athletic person. I was the little girl with her nose in a book while all the other kids were outside running around or riding bikes. I played the clarinet. As a matter of fact, I went to a very large music school in the south and I have a Bachelor's degree in clarinet performance. My idea of exercise was taking a flight or two of stairs at work (ok, it still is but that's a different issue). I'm already a 'big' person, I'm 5'9" and not thin by nature. So by the time I was about 31 I weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 210 lbs. and was a size 18. Somehow I managed to lose most of the weight (took maybe 6-8 months) and get down to a 12, I don't remember how, but I'm sure it involved switching to diet soda from regular among other things. Finally I decided to try this yoga thing that A kept yammering on and on about. I signed up for a month-long beginners series at Be Yoga (before it was acquired by YogaWorks, blech). It was hard but I liked it. I had finally found something that could stop that constant yammering in my head. So I kept going back to Be Yoga, eventually getting up the nerve to move up to level 1/2 (that was a huge step for me). At that point, maybe 5 months later or so) I went to LA to visit A and we ended up dating for a while (sort of, it was long distance) and he took me to a vinyasa class at Maha. NOW I had finally found something that worked but they didn't have anything like that at Be. Maha has great flow classes, awesome music, it's VERY 'Southern California' yoga. About a month later he came to NY for a visit and he took me to Jivamukti. I fell in love. It was HARD and I got sweaty and worked and it was great. I abandoned Be for Jivamukti and was there three or four times a week. There was a ton of stuff I was too weak to do (UD, the endless sun salutations) but I didn't care. It was fun and the music was great and it was the first time that any kind of physical activity didn't turn me off. I stuck with it. Until Pattabhi Jois came to town......and that's enough history for today.

Practice was good today but I'm really sore from going all out two days in a row (I'm such a wimp) so tomorrow's home practice will probably be mellow. Very nice fingertip grabs on marichasana c again today, and I managed to stick them even after Teacher got up and walked away. Three nice backbends again today and the dropback preps against the wall are getting better too. On the third one I *think* I almost saw the floor. No word yet on A, still need to call the west coast and see how he's doing, however, I appreciate everyone's good wishes.