Tartan Yogi

I am sitting in front of a bucket of black coffee and it is good. I have decided to give up giving up coffee, rather I will take the everything in moderation approach. Which is quite difficult when everywhere serves coffee in enormo sizes. Oh well, the caffeine buzz will last all day - hopefully until mysore later on.

I had a fantastic weekend at my mum and dad's. I did lots of yoga in their house which overlooks the sea and somehow makes everything seem less hurried than in the big city. My yoga practices are always good there, hell I am even progressing in hanumanasana for the first time ever. After the Dharma Mittra workshop, where this pose played a large part of the sequence he taught, I have carried on practicing it as an aside to my usual primary series practice. I can now get my front leg on both sides flat on the floor, my hips aren't down on the floor yet, but it is definitely improving. Just a few inches to go.

Also I am really loving headstand. My durations are improving, so now I need to concentrate on coming down with a bit more control. It still astonishes me that I can do this pose finally after having such a battle with it. I keep practicing it when I am at home just to check it hasn't vamooshed...I wonder if that is normal. I used to do it when I first got Mari D too actually now I come to think about it.

I even got to practice my teaching on my mum, she practices Iyengar style yoga and is really flexible. I love the fact that we can talk about yoga, which we do all the time, but then isn't everything about yoga really? We spent a good hour going through all the adjustments I have been learning in the training course and she was going to teach some of them to her teacher because she liked them so much. I definitely need to find some more victims to practice on as it was a good way of getting the adjustments into my head, and to practice on varied age and flexibility groups.

I also spent lots of time discussing the yoga philosophy with dad, which was good as it has helped to fomalise in my mind some of the homework questions about yoga and religion. Although we did stay up till 2 on Saturday and I am still recovering, I usually go to bed at 10. I must actually write down my answers to the homework rather than leaving them in my head. I will promise to myself to do that tonight after practice. Although I have stupidly agreed to go to the morning mysore at 6.30am tomorrow in another attempt to get into morning practice so will have to have an earlyish night.

Over the weekend I managed to plunder mum and dad's garden of tomatoes, apples, marrows and plums. The husband spent a happy afternoon making jam so our kitchen now looks like a farmer's market. Mum and dad (the old hippies that they are) grow everything organically and it is so nice to cook with home grown fruit and veg. I really wish I had a garden, maybe one day. I wonder if I could grow mushrooms in a cupboard though, that would be cool. Except the cats might try and eat them.

We have a backbending workshop this weekend as part of teacher training. I have been trying to up my duration in urdhva dhanurasana so I don't show myself up. I managed about 30 odd breaths yesterday. I was telling the husband about it and he said 'why don't you just breath faster', not sure I would get away with that unfortunately. I think some of the trainess are freaking out a bit about the workshop, I am really looking forward to it. Although I do love backbending. And am possibly also feeling a bit smug because I have been really rocking the drop backs and coming up in the last couple of weeks. Although I did fall on my head the other day, one of the hazards of being a yogi I suppose - along with having to go to bed early and being obsessed with tiger balm.

In other news, I am waiting for my delivery of The Key Muscles of Hatha Yoga today, I hope it arrives. It looks really useful as it has computer generated pics of the yoga poses showing where all the bones and muscles are and how poses affect them. I really am becoming a yoga book whore! I love them though but should read other things sometimes too, although I did read a really interesting book last week about the standard UK diet and how it is making everyone fat - the newspapers topic du jour.

Gosh, what a long post. Really should do some work. You see this is the problem with not blogging for a while, the blogs then end up being massive!

I have seen the light, or rather the rain and darkness when I got up at 5 this morning. I walked into the yoga centre, it is surprising how many people are up and about at that time in the morning. Class was fairly busy and I managed to get a good heat going - even though I cheated and only did 3 surya namaskara Bs. Bad yogi. I miss that heat I just don't seem to be able to generate at home due to the husband's trick of leaving the windows open all the time even if it is snowing.

Then practice was OK, not fabulous, but OK. My knee is getting there. Weirdly I can now do lotus again, but am still having issues with ardha baddha on the bad (right) side and Mari D. Oh well, I am sure I just need to carry on not forcing it too much in case I injure it more. I am sure it all stems from a car accident I had when I was little. Actually I had 2 car accidents (both involved me being hit by a car as I crossed the road on my bike) - I am just clumsy I think! Both accidents sprained my right ankle, but maybe they did something to my knee as well.

Anyway, then I got to drop backs, so I did usual assisted ones and then the teacher had me just run my hands down my legs. And was told to take my ankles. The first time I just thought there was no way, plus I was worried about falling on my head backwards, so I just put my arms down and did a normal backbend. But the second and third ones I managed to get my hands to my ankles and it was amazing! I hope I get to do that at the backbending workshop at the weekend. It really was quite mind blowing actually...

Although, I think practice would have been easier if I had not stayed up till 11 last night watching Saving Private Ryan while trying to do my yoga homework, the sound of firing guns is actually quite conducive to writing an essay on whether or not yoga is a religion. Quite perverse when you think about it really.

So seeing as I have already practiced today (not that I am being smug about it at all or anything) I am going to see the new Wickerman film tonight. The reviews say it is dreadful, and I can't really imagine Nicolas Cage playing the Edward Woodward character. It will be interesting to see how they translate weirdy Scottish islanders to weirdy Americans though.

I am also going to try and get up for practice tomorrow. They only have morning mysore on twice a week which sucks as getting a routine going might be difficult. I think I will try to do the 2 clases on the Tues/Thurs and then practice at home on Mon/Wed and do the night class on a Friday. That way I get a lie in on a Friday. And I can do home practice on a Sunday like usual. I will do it, I will....and I have to now I have written it down, that is the rule.

In other news, I am painting my nails a lovely shade called pure berry while sitting at my desk. Just as well my manager is on holiday. At least I'm not doing my toenails...it is all in an effort to smarten myself up as I am a disgrace and tend to look like a bag lady at work. Although this may just be my ego trying to justify why I bought myself a new red bag yesterday, also accidentally bought a new watch to match. Yay materialism! I really do have a lot of yoga work to do...

Prize goes to the Wickerman. I spent the first half an hour being dazzled by Nicolas Cage's teeth, they are so white it isn't normal and the main female character looked like she had never eaten in her life. Plus they removed any reference to religion which was one of the main themes of the original. I suppose they did what they could with a 12 rating, but I will never get the image of Nicolas Cage punching a woman in the face to steal a monkey suit out of my head. And the bit where he stole a bicycle from an unarmed girl at gunpoint. I would see the original before going to see this, it made me appreciate the original film a whole lot more.

Anyway, rant over.

We went to a Thai buffet place for dinner after the film which was underwhelming. I always worry about places where veggie food is right next to the food with meat in it because it all gets mixed up. But they did have a fabulous platter of watermelon which no one was eating so I gorged myself. I love watermelon.

After walking home I crashed out after my exertions of the morning and spectacularly failed to get up for home practice. I am completely rubbish! I will do it tonight instead and am going to morning mysore tomorrow again. I read somewhere that it takes about 3 weeks to make something a habit, so next week I am going to really make more of an effort to get up when morning mysore isn't on. What I need is some sort of ejector bed which propells me into my yoga gear and on to my mat before I have a chance to object...

In other news I got my copy of The Key Muscles of Hatha Yoga yesterday. It is fantastic, it has been done using computer imaging and it is excellently clear. Having no anatomical knowledge whatsoever before I started the teacher training, this book is definitely a great resource. Coulter is useful as well, but it is a lot more wordy and pretty dense - or maybe it is me who is dense ;)

Hoorah for a moon day and going out for dinner which will be hopefully more exciting that the grab-all-you-can-eat (even though it might have been wiped in meat) on Tuesday. I never go out to eat, dunno what is happening this week! I went round to my sister's last night after practice and had a marvellous curry too. Just as well I do all this yoga really or I would need to build extensions into all of my clothes...

So we have backbending over the weekend as part of TT. I have been trying to build up my time in urdhva danurasana and managed 30 breaths followed by another 20 which I am fairly proud of *smug grin*. Plus the excitements of grabbing my ankles in drop back practice on Tuesday. It will be interesting to practice some of those second series backbends, I do like ustrasana and often think it is a shame it isn't in the primary series so I could practice it. Patience is a virtue I do not posess. Mind you I must have it somewhere otherwise I wouldn't have carried on with the primary series...

Speaking of which I have been practicing yoga nidra position to try and work the shoulders under my legs for supta K. I can definitely feel the benefit so am going to continue to do it.l Although the husband thinks I have lost it when he walks into a room and I am peering back at him with my bottom in the air and legs behind my head.

If I ever do get supta K I think you will all be able to hear me screaming with joy.

Which is why I am sitting at my desk looking like a drowned rat. Not a good look, oh well. I dyed my hair black a couple of days ago and painted my nails silver (so I am rocking with an old school goth look now!) and I was panicking the dye would run. Completely unjustified, but I used to use the awful cheap dye which would run all over the place at the first hint of moisture. I remember I had a friend who dyed his hair blue but accidentally managed to dye his face at a the same time. He looked like a smurf.

Had an interesting second series class on Tuesday, hell I even tried kapotasana and managed to grab my feet. Totally crim obviously as I am not nearly ready to do it, but interesting nonetheless. Then yesterday I had an excellent home practice with Nick Cave as my backing track, most traditional. Unfortunately I have managed to do something to my upper back so am laying off practice until Sunday to heal. Non-attachment, non-attachment, non-attachment...

In other news, I had an epiphany in Tesco's carpark after class on Tuesday as I was waiting for the husband. I had ordered some amazing raw chocolate bars and my god they are good. Rather excellently the husband doesn't like them so there is more for me. They might even be on my dad's list of things he can eat (he has MS and is on a special diet which doesn't allow you dairy products) which will cheer him up.

I am fed up of having to work. People just aren't designed to sit in front of computers all day - it makes them grumpy, bored and unfulfilled. Or maybe that is just me. I am not sure how long I can keep it up. Part time would be ideal but the company tend to frown on it unless you have children and I think having a baby to get time off work is a bit extreme.

Maybe the changing seasons are getting to me. All I want to do at the moment is stare out of the window or sit around reading books. And do yoga of course. Although to be fair that is pretty much all I usually want to do normally. I think I was meant to be an idler, not a worker.

I went to an Iyengar class at the weekend which was interesting. They do love their props don't they. It was a 2 hour class and we did a few sequences including a warm up one which went uttanasana, ardho mukha svanasana and then handstand. I rather enjoyed it. Then we did a warrior sequence and one focusing on parsvotonasana. With Iyengar it really does depend a lot on the teacher, the classes I have been to before are either completely ineffectual or quite strong. This teacher gave us a pretty strong practice so it was more challenging, I worked up a sweat and everything. I liked it and am going to go back this week.

Maybe I am falling out of love with ashtanga.

And I was supposed to get up for mysore this morning and didn't. Am going to go to a talk through instead.

In other news am obsessing about tattoos again. I am going to get one I had done a while ago covered up with a rather nice lotus flower I think.

Maybe I am just having one of those days where everything is just slightly wrong for no reason and I am just bothered...

The air conditioning is broken at work and am finding it hard to bring myself to do anything. I wonder if anyone would mind if I curled up under my desk and had a snooze.

Went to mysore last night and I think possibly because of the changing seasons and upcoming moon day I felt as heavy as lead. Although weirdly it was a not bad practice. Have decided to practice at home with Nick Cave tonight though. I think he makes an excellent backing track. Beats the husband's AC/DC anyway...

Actually I quite like AC/DC, there is a really good band called Hayseed Dixie who do country versions of classic rock songs and they do a cracking version of Highway to Hell.

Excitingly the husband and I are going to go to India for a week or so in January. Not quite sure where yet and I won't be doing any yoga, but it will be fun nonetheless.

Cooking won last night. Or should I say uncooking. I skipped class last night and went home to make some linseed crackers in the dehydrator and some veg curry for the husband. Then I started off some chickpeas to sprout in the vain hope they won't ferment like last time. I want to make some raw hummous with them, it is soooo good - far better than any shop version I have had. You just put in the chick peas, tahini, lots of lemon juice. garlic and maybe some sundried tomatoes if you are feeling adventurous. Yum.

I may be becoming a health food junkie. I have been reading my hilarious Juliano raw cookbook (loving his work and rubber trousers) and it has given me inspiration to try these things out. And the main thing is that his recipes taste so nice.

Anyway, I did do a mini backbending practice last night (I love ustrasana, great pose) and am going to a class tonight even though it is a moon day. Am then meeting friends in the pub where I will probably drink too much beer even though I plan to only have one as I am a lightweight and don't want to be carried home. Hoorah for the weekend! It makes the rest of the week of work tedium bearable. As does the yoga too of course.

Am also having a bit of a nightmare with the yoga teacher training homework this month as we have to use an example of our real lives to show one of the messages in the Bhagavad Gita. I am a bit hesitant to use something really personal, but then I haven't even decided which chapter to look at. Must do some more reading at the weekend and decide.

Funnily enough I had a chat with one of the teachers about the Ana Forrest workshop which is part of our course. Apparently she can make people cry! Sounds quite full on, I think she takes yoga as very much an emotional process, which I think it is, but it will be interesting to see how her approach goes down in the UK where we are a bit more 'ahem' repressed on such matters.