Zzzzzzzzz

I am sooooooo tired this morning. I went to bed after 10pm two nights in a row! Last night I didn't even get home until almost midnight. Am very pooped, and the Ladies' Holiday rages on. I'm at least two sizes larger than normal. And that's over and obove my January/February stress weight. No fun but hopefully it will be gone by Sunday so I can feel human again.

I went to the first lecture of the David Williams workshop last night. I'm glad I went, he's pretty entertaining and I like what he had to say. He talked for over two hours but I really took away (for myself) two things. The first is, if it hurts you're doing it wrong. I think a lot of times in ashtanga we forget that. I tend to think more along the lines of 'if it hurts, then I must not be capable/strong enough/flexible enough'. Funny how I always turn it to a negative connotation of the self. Currently the bhujapidasana, kurmasana, supta kurmasana sequence is what hurts me (and I can't even really do them anyway!). So I've made an executive decision. I'm pulling my practice back to Navasana for the forseeable future. I will miss baddha konasana, upavistha konasana, supta konasana (my personal all time favorite) but I think I've been hurting myself in bhujapidasana, kurmasana and supta kurmasana because I'm not ready for them. They were given to me by my teachers in LA, I think for the purpose of helping with the marichy's but it ain't working. Perhaps in my home practice I will do my lame attempts at bhuja and the kurmasanas just to get the hips to open up. I figure if I switch to Guy's, I'd get everything taken away after the Marichys anyway so what's the difference?

The second thing I took away was about the breathing. When you play a wind instrument for 14+ years, you belly breathe. That's just the way it is. In order to support all of the sound you're trying to make, you really have to get the whole abdominal cavity to fill up. But David had us try mula bandha and take deep breaths and I totally see what he's getting at. Perhaps that's why my stomach is not flat and I have no core strength? :) Have I been doing it wrong all this time? Maybe so. That is going to be my primary focus for the next few months, see if I can really strengthen the bandhas and forget about how deep in the stupid poses I'm getting. I mean, who cares, right? Well, I care but I'm going to try not to.

On a lighter note, I met Anna and Eeyore (who doesn't have a blog to link to, but I think he should!!!!). It was so nice to meet them, Anna is just like she seems in her blog, outgoing and friendly and sweet and funny. And Eeyore is sooooo nice. He's taking the whole workshop, good for him! I'm far too lazy plus the thought of getting into the minutiae of the primary series right now is a little too much for me. So I'll just go to my 'hot vinyasa' class tomorrow and to regular class with Batman on Sunday. It will be nice to have a friendly face at the shala sometimes too, so I was really glad to meet Anna. I'll be sad if she leaves for LA but very happy for her, I know what it's like to be stuck somewhere you don't really want to be. I'll be a little envious too.... :)