Is this really MY life?

I managed to roll out of bed at 6am, let the dogs out to pee really quick then parked them on the couch to watch me practice. I went up to parsvakonasana and gave up. That's right, GAVE UP. I don't wanna. I just don't wanna. I need the classroom and the teacher and the lack of distracting dust bunnies on the floor. I need the heat and the energy and the motivation of not embarassing myself in front of a bunch of people. I just do. I DO I DO I DO I DO I DO I DO I DO I DO I DO. And I'm not ashamed to admit it. So after I gave up at about 6:20, I took the dogs for a walk, fed them and got ready for work. And continued to be agitated with the BF, left over from last night, which is left over from last weekend. Did I mention that I hold grudges. Yeah, I do.

Since my brain is a little work fried right now, what better time than now to finish the LI Ashtangini yoga history!

We left off with wrist pain and mysore practice. I started mysore practice with S at the tiny studio in Santa Monica. I also took a vinyasa class on Saturdays there, which is where I broke my big right toe. That was my first major yoga injury. Fucker still doesn't look quite right and has a weird pop every time I move it. So I went to the doctor for the wrist pain. Of course, it's tendonitis. And why do I have it? From the yoga! The doctor, of course, recommended that I stop the yoga. I laughed and said, 'I don't think so'. S and my other teacher M gave me all kinds of extra R&D to do and homeopathic/natural remedies to help it. I iced, I wore wrist braces, I even took Advil, which I really don't like taking (kidneys, people, kidneys!). There was a lot of work on 'waking up' the muscles of the back and shoulders to take some of the load off my poor wrists. Backwards perpendicular handstands against the wall (upper body is vertical and legs are parallel to the floor, feet on the wall). Then came the really fun injury.

It was a Friday morning in August 2006. Did my practice and then was doing my backbends, which at that time I did with my arms pushed up to the wall. And I felt something bad happen in the region of my lower back, but not enough to be an immediate problem. So I did my finishing (which I think made it worse, if you want to know the truth) and went home, showered, and went to work. Throughout the day the pain in my lower back got worse and worse and finally I went home at 3pm. Best position was lying on my back on the floor with my feet and legs propped up in a chair. I went to bed and at about 9pm (I was mostly asleep) had the first back spasm. Seriously, if this has never happened to you, it feels like you are paralyzed and may never walk again. It happened twice more during the night, even though I slept with a big floor pillow under my knees (I'm a stomach sleeper and HATE sleeping on my back; it was pure torture for a month). By Saturday all I could do was lie on my back in the aforementioned position. I missed a good friend's birthday party that night and on Sunday, barely able to get in my car (it's very low to the ground), I went to class. I limped in and S immediately began the rehab/restorative. And she did this (along with M) every day for two weeks before I left for New York. Let me tell you that low back injuries suck suck suck. I must have dealt with this off and on for about two months then spent the next 6 months not backbending and rehabbing my hips and lower back. What we came to discover is that I have flexible hamstrings (generally), tight quads and hips that outwardly rotate well (baddha konasana) but don't inwardly rotate very well at all (tiryang mukai blah blah blah). Feet and knees want to go out out out which is apparently bad. Plus my need to push myself led to a perfect storm and a nasty sacrum issue that I still struggle with to this very day.

After the back was rehabbed I practiced with Dominic Corigliano for several months since S left to go have her baby. That was pretty cool. If you've never taken a class from him, I highly recommend it. I made a lot of progress and steadily got stronger. S came back from maternity leave and I had to rotate between S, M and Dominic for a while due to job issues and such.

Then came the abscess. I'm not going to get into that story but suffice it to say that...you know where you put your foot in Janu Sirsasana B? That's where my abscess was. Yep. It required lancing then an additional outpatient surgery two months later and it still bothers me off and on (more on than off). I didn't practice Janu B for months. The second surgery happened two weeks before......

M and G had Chuck Miller and Maty Ezraty in for weeklong Mysore classes, Monday through Saturday last September. It was craaaaazy. The space holds not quite 40 mats, I believe? We were mat to mat (or, nose to ass, as A would say). It was definitely some of the best energy I've felt in a yoga class, for sure. I was two weeks off the minor surgery and I thought I wasn't going to be able to go at all. I was absolutely hysterical about missing it, there was MUCH drama. When the time came though, I was ok enough to practice at about 80-90% so I went. I'm so glad I did, it was amazing. I was certainly one of the most junior practitioners in the room but for once I didn't care. Maty is like a teeny tiny volleyball coach. She knew most of the people in the room and was shouting all the time, it was hilarious. Chuck is, well, in a word, intense. I didn't have very much interaction with them until the very last day. I had finished my practice and was doing my backbends and Chuck came over to me. He sat down next to me and said 'do I know you?'. I said no, told him my name and he proceeded to walk me through backbending for about 20 minutes or so. I was both honored and horrified. He talked about finding my feet and basically wouldn't let me out of bridge pose. The next day my legs were KILLING me. He is amazing, truly truly amazing. His eyes are SO intense. He finished up with me (or got tired of my lameness, whichever) and walked away, so I worked for a bit more on the backbending then I stood up to do my dropback preps against the wall. He calls out from across the room 'where are your feet? do you feel your feet?' YIKES! Now every time I backbend I hear Chuck's voice. Every single solitary time. Good times.....

A few weeks later I ended up here. In hell. Did I mention I hate Long Island? Yeah, I thought so.