Ashtanga Traveler

So more or less for the past week and half I have felt like a drip. I could not walk up a flight of stairs, never mind practice. Wiped out, totally.

Coming back into practice I was steady and easy on myself...primary, maybe even only half. This morning was my first go at second again...and it went really well....surprise. I think I have more or less worked out Pincha Mayurasana....although it probably still looks like trash. Have not contemplated moving into the next pose once in the forearm balance....but might do that tomorrow...contemplate that is, not do. I am in no real rush to get there, I suppose because I will prbably be there for like EVER....so why rush.

I took H off to his first visit at "BIG" school. OKay it did not go that well. He was a mess... I felt so bad. He is so sensitive and gets so overwhelmed with anxiety.....He was missing his little bro as well. The whole thing is traumatic, for everyone.

The boys recieved some excellent pre-season pressies from their Aunt and Uncle in VT.....Go Red Sox.

SO I am in a funny head space at the moment, have been for a few weeks...maybe it is the turn of the season...looking into winter, that sort of thing. I feel like I am on a treadmill at work, that of course sucks, but is in no way surprising. Kids are great, so funny. Life at home is cool, more or less, although we are facing a move next weekend...I hate moving..hate packing, hate all the flippin details of it, phone calls, change of address....like one big yawn.

Okay, I know I sound like a bore as well.....great eh?.

Yoga o'contrare....going really well. I am more stiff than usual, have some issues going in my back...under left shoulderblade and at the top of the lumbar region left side mostly....but I mean nothing crazy.....it feels uncomfortable, but managable. Pincha Mayurasana is a breeze....yikes, did I say that....what an ego....okay that is not entirely true anyway...I still hit bottom when I land, but I have got my hands positioned okay when landing (I think)....but then of course, I am staring into the vastness of the next asana....and well, it is vast...cuz I am not sure how the hell that is going to work. SO maybe the spiritual void is on right now because the "physical" thing is looking quite complex and taking my attention or something.

Hitting the climbing wall again tomorrow night...been good to get back on the (plastic) rock, hey it is better than nothing....cannot wait for the real deal....planning to head down into the Darren's I hope for some multipy pitch madness over summer...have lots to get ready for to do that....like, oh learn how to lead....yeah, right. Looks like C is gonna have a lot to do.

I decided to try to do one home practice a week, to up the normal anti from 5 to 6 days a week..... I have to be at the shala for 5 practices, so most weeks I leave it at that. Generally home practices turn out to be not so fulfilling, but I am turing over a new leaf....forcing myself to try and overcome this obstacle....hey it is a challenge, past my comfort zone.

So for the past two weeks I have gone ahead. Last week was cool. Whisked home at lunch time [enough time to cruise while PCR was running....Cameron :)], set the mat up in the bedroom, and went for it....and it was okay....no "home" issues...like all the laundry, dishes, the fact we are moving, kidz toys everywhere. I just cleared a space big enough for me and my mat...and it seemed to work. But I did not go over board...just half the primary...then back to work for the rest of the day.

This week I decided to work the day and leave about 3:45 to get home for about and hour and half before kids closed in. Now the house is a f-cking mess. Boxes everywhere, dust and feathers stirred up all over the bedroom....right so I think IGNORE the shit....I am hacking and coughing away....so much for practiceing in a nice tidy space....but still I have this challenge. Plus I decide to do second...interesting. Never down second at home....what would happen. The other thing I did was ask C to video a few things for me so that I could have a look at what i am doing in some poses I can more or less do, in order to help with the lateral transfer to other poses....especially the up side down ones, cuz I feel more or less out of whack. SO I was sort of asking for it. The first pose was going up into split handstand after prasarita padottanasana A-D...now this is not included in the primary but we do it at our school. I am interested the vid clip because I can lift up into this sort of handstand, whereas when I try to go into it with the legs together...like no way, I have to push up with my feet. SO I am hoping that I will be able to use the visual info to help.

Anyway, Craig was cool and very helpful. But then I went into kapotasana...he was videoing (want info on shoulders just before grabbing feet), and then phone rang...and he literally hopped over me to grab it....I FREAKED!!!!! I mean it was not his fault clearly...but kapotasana....YIKES. So needless to say he got one good dose of emotion pouring out of me....and to be quite honest I do not blame him for taking it personally...although I tried to assure him it was "just the pose". Anyway, I went into again (he had removed himself at this point....a bit afraid of me I think...) and it was awesome...in fact I stayed longer than usual, cuz I sort of felt like I was floating....not in some tremdous back bend....it was cool and peaceful. so weird.

I finally asked him to shoot one more pose...pincha mayurasana...but it was too dark, damn. Have to do that one again another day.

SO while the practice more or less stunk, it was a good effort. WIll repeat again next week.

I had a fantastic go this morning on the mat, so alive. I felt strong and light-ish....well for 6am. Ended up getting the next pose from my teacher....okay now I mean I know I have a little tendency to moan and complain abit....but come on....what is up with karandavasana....it is like everything before it...babysteps....and then the wallop, flippin monster leap....so, anyway, I will be stuck here for like ever, cuz I am clueless. But it will be exciting and a major challenge.

I am STILL struggling with Bakasana B.....and that could be B for some other word. But I got some really good tips this morning from another student...who has an AMAZING bakasana A and B....makes it looks so totally simple, effortless. SO that is cool for the mind to stew on for a bit....one thing a noticed was as this student straighten their arms after placing knees properly in A, an ever so slight inward rotation in the arms. He suggested think "triangle" with the pivot point of the pose at the wrists which would be the bottom of the triangle.

Now this is not meant to be a downer of an entry....actually things are pretty good, despite all the "stuff" going on around me. I am trying to take on a removed attitude so that I do not get too sucked into.

First, we moved last weekend. Great to be in a new space, glad to be out of the old, although missing our close friends and neighbors there, not missing the Lizard Landlord in the basement. New house is more or less okay...while farther out from the city it is actually quicker to get in by hopping on the motorway....funny. So I can get to and from Yoga in less than 10 minutes....very cool.

The hard part about the move was that both kids were down with a HORRENDOUS tummy bug....a both-ender...all night, like 6 changes of clothes and bedding....one Friday night, the other Sunday night....talk about bad timing. In addition, our tenant called twice over the weekend (which by the way was ANZAC weekend and therefore a 3 dayer) to say that someone stole the letter box...there is a letterbox theif on Waiheke...so I just laughed this one off, the lawn guy had not turned up at all in like 6 weeks, so we are talking total jungle, and the water cylinder was broken and she had no hot water...these are of course all sort of urgent things to take care of....in the midst of our own moving/vomiting madness. I spent the entire day of Monday on the coach, playing one video after another for the kids...I am not even sure if I fed them....Yikes. Oh, and I forgot to mention that in the new house the real estate parasites did not lift a finger to do any cleaning or maintenance before we arrived AND they did not investigate how we were going to get out power put on over the holiday so we had to live with this very loud beeping (every 10 sec) noise from a pre-pay power meter from f-cking Mercury....cuz we wanted to switch to Contact...C staple gunned a pillow to the wall to try and muffle the noise, we had to turn the power off at night in order to sleep....and to top it off C had to get on his hands and knees to clean up rodent shit......I won't go into that any more than I have to, but there are a lot of rodents in NZ.....

Anyway....yoga on Tuesday afternoon was very mild....more like just simply movin on my mat. On Wed (yesterday) things were really cool...although karandavasana minced my shoulders completely. Went to the Rock Gym last night with C and a couple of other guys (including my best friend)...that was cool. Only made it up one....but we are all going after things well over our ablity....okay over my ability...like 20-23's....not sure how that tranlastes to US grades, but it is indoor crap anyhow. Seems a bit more fun when it is too hard...cuz really, it is indoor. I can tell you what really irks me about indoor climbing....two most common things to make something hard....reach and overhang. Okay so I am 5'4''-ish...maybe 3 something really...and climbing with three men all at least 6 ft, and I HATE overhangs....cannot get the technique down for the life of me. I have shit strength in my forearms....probably also why Bakasana B and Karandavasana are tricky for me. One cool thing about going indoor is the floor padding. I got C to vid clip me a few times coming out of Pincha Mayurasana...what delightful landing.....so for anyone trying to work this out....go to a rock gym, find the cushy floor and just go for it.

I almosy forgot to mention this mornings yoga...right so after a 2+ hour am Mysore and then 2+ hours on the wall yesterday....my arms are dead this morning....but I had a surprisingly nice practice all the way to Tittibasana...and then something happened....I just about burst into tears....wells of anxiety and sadness....lifting up through me....I just sat with it, with my head down....not holding back, just being, breathing. Then continued on to a lovely finish. It is just "stuff"....I more or less know what it is about....I am pretty sad...but trying to move forward with grace.

Pix from the New House

H in the backyard, orange tree swing

Conrad AKA "RUBBER MAN" eating Feijoas, in season right now...so yum, neighboor's tree, lucky us the fruit lands on our drive.

H on his bike, in the front lawn.