Ashtanga Traveler

The bruise are actually quite hidious. I was admiring them this morning and thanked myself for having a shaded arm on the right side to hide the purpley/yellow bruise....cuz on the left side it is a shocker....and very sore. I decided to go easy on myself this am....first I woke up later than usually and from a deep sleep, so i was groggy as. I decided in the car it would be primary today....give my back and hips a break...and needless to say my arms. During the salutes I found myself really enjoying the breath in downward facing dog....and moved very consciously through each salute, thankful for this time and space....in the back of my mind was a little nag however....the "have to speed up cuz we gotta cruise before 8am" nag....to put that little beast to bed I decided I would only go as far as I could and finish wherever.....but try to have a nice rest and long headstand....importantly no rushing.

My practise was great, it felt so amazingly wonderful. No aches or pains, no over done muscles, just smooth and velvetie. I only got up to Janu C.....then had three small backbends....and took my time closing....long shoulder stand, long (like really long for me) headstand.....breathing and then rest. It has been awhile since I have so willfully simplified my practice....

I also took time after Utkatasana to practice my handstand "work"....which is the lifting exercises so the feet come off the ground....

Last practice is tomorrow...later start as it is Saturday. My goal is to go in early and do all the primary and second with full closing....going to give myself 3 hours....should be fun, assuming I get out of bed in time for all that.

It just does not stop raining here in the winter months. I am blaming the rain for my extra sore right knee this morning....it hurt like hell actually. The rest of me was not that great either....not all spruced up at all....sort of like gigantic slug, oozing through vinyasas. I practiced in the afternoon yesteraday, so it is not too suprising that I was sore and tired.

Other news.....I made two batman capes last night for the boys...okay one Batman, and one "Bat-Robin".....since I am a ridiculously bad sewer, this was no small feat. Plus I had a VERY difficult time trying to actually sew the items, as they both wanted to know what every button on the damn machine was for ....BOYS. Both boys are delighted despite the obvious amatuer nature of the articles. When I got home from practice this morning they were donning their capes at the breakfast table. I could be mum of the year! Okay for a few minutes anyway.

Okay there is a BIG part of me that is skeptical about this....the castrol oil/heat wrap for joint pain/healing....but what the hell. I decided to give it a whirl and will continue for awhile just to see. My knee is not happy...I am of course not sure what the problem is and it would certainly behoove me to go to a physio or oesto...but I am still in that denial stage...however, it was so sore yesterday and is just not getting better. I have been reading up on the anatomy of the knee, despite my desire to avoid knowing how bad it could be. I really have no idea what it is, but I have a few guesses....lateral collateral ligament...maybe? The cause of pain is going into lotus or half lotus on the right side....I am fine actually in lotus. The site of pain is the lateral side of the knee, right around the tibia and fibula join....But like I said this is pure speculation. It does not hurt at all to do normal activities. Yesterday and today it has been slightly achey (it has been pissing down)....not red or swollen.

After practice this morning, I iced it. This afternoon I was planning to do another heat wrap. Now if anyone has tips on this.....ideas, notions....whatever, I'd be keen on hearing about it. I am probably going to see about gettin myself booked into see a professional soon.....cuz in the end it is better to know than not know.

Definitely a downer.

Other news.....I am relief teaching my first talk-thru class tonight....OMG....YIKES. I get so nervous it is not funny....chill pill myself. This morning's practice was crap....I think I knocked myself out a bit too much with the Valerian last night.....I usually only have it when I am a bit wound up at bed time....but this socked it to me....and the last thing I wanted to do was get up and practice this morning....I did, but it sucked. I was tired, heavy, motivationless....the good thing was the long rest at the end.

Yesterday was a hoot. First off kid one is on school holiday....and he is USING it. I cannot beleive I actually fessed up to two other mothers about our day....kid two gets to creche....had to bring new batman toy with him, or else megga tears....kid one heads to work with me....in car

M: "Do you know what I do at work, Hux?"

H: "No, mum."

M: "I am a scientist, well sort of."

silence, clearly not that interested

M: "What do you want to do when you grow?" I know, I asked the question...

H: "I do not want to grow up, mum. I want to play."

....

Later on at the office....

M: "I have to go down to the lab. Do you want to come and draw pictures of what you see, or stay here?"

H: "I want to draw pictures. But do I have to wear one of those white things?"

M: "Well, you are supposed to. I am going to wear one."

Hux is not completely freaked by the big poison and radoactive signs, the "Contains Genetically Modified Organisms" signs...the blue gloves, the red juice in strange plastic containers....he is freaked by the lab coats.

I cannot get him to come in to look at cells in the microscope....he stands holding the door slightly ajar with his foot watching with hesitation.

On the way back to the office.....

H: "what happened to your eyes?"

M: "Do you mean what happened when I looked into the microscope?"

H: "yeah"

M: "I could see all the cells that are in the red juice (probably should have said liquid).....lots of little circles floating around that you cannot see when you just look at it in the flask."

H: "Can I get a treat now, mum?"

H gets a chocolate bar from the snack box.

.....

After grocery shopping, we headed home. Lunch for Hux consisted of a few handfulls of chippies and two (I know)....chocolate ice blocks...."cuz its the school holidays, eh, mum?"

Am I the biggest push over or what.

.....

On the knee front....Damage report: over-stretched collateral lateral ligament....will heal 4-6 weeks hopefully. Treatment: oil wraps everyday; massage, ultra-sound, acupucture twice a week, quad strengthening exercises twice daily. Yoga good....but do not do anything that aggravates it...hmmm....so no lotus? no half lotus? hmmmm....not happy, but going to give it a whirl. Take 3 days rest with Ladies days....all three.

.....

Last night: caught "what the Bleep do we know", had yummy soup and sav blanc with a coupla chiquitas....and ear candling.....should have taken pix....

got the goss

Can someone tell me why men and women decide to hook up....maybe we should all just segragate by sex....probably be much happier....like minds and all.

I am trying my absolute best to keep the good vibe going....but this KNEE.....such a pain....

I practiced in the afternoon yesterday....must have abeen about 20 in the class....which is big. Room was full, although there could be twice as many people in there...but people here like their space.

It was warm....so I felt pretty good....decided to do second series. I usually only do primary when I practice in the afternoon....to help the sleeping process. But what the hell, right?

Knee problem in Supta Vajrasana and of course Karandavasana. So I need to figure out what to do, modify, change etc in order to get a nice counter-pose for Kapotasana....and also get the strength work I need in KV, without continually doing in my knee....I am open to suggestions.....

The teacher this morning suggested that I do a matsyasana variation without lotus, comfortable cross-legged instead. For KV, well what about crossing with the left leg into half lotus first and then just simply bring the right leg in behind....so not in lotus, just cross legged? and then work on lowering and lifting, that sort gig? Would that help with the strengthening that I need when I go back to doing full pose in lotus. I tried it out....it is not so "compact" for sure, might even be harder to hold position? Anyway, thoughts on this would be grand.

This morning's practice was not so nice...knee was sore after pushing it too much yesterday...so I really do need to back off. Have physio tomorrow.....with all the goodies. Might look into an ayurvedic treatment.

Life ain't bad at the moment. I am weary of some things, feeling more grounded about others....pining for Mysore. Wondering will it be possible to get there after xmas for a "small" jaunt...sans children....oh, the dreams.

I thought I would tell you about how bored I am at work today....what I am doing? A time course (TC) experiment.....not a hard one, just harvesting cells every hour, spinning them down, washing them in phosphate buffered saline (PBS), spinning again, then freezing cell pellets on dry ice (if you are a stickler you would use liquid Nitrogen)... I set up the experiment with a control treatment and a drug treatment....each to be harvested hourly.

and for what...so I can bust open the cells on another day...all samples at once collected over the TC, using detergent plus some protease inhibitors (so my proteins of interest do not get chewed up while the samples are being processed).....and then run the cell lysates on SDS-PAGE, which is very short for sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylimide gel electrophoresis.... and them blot the proteins which are now embedded with the SDS-PAGE gel and separated by size onto a membrane (like nitrocellulose or nylon) using a active transfer apparatus...meaning with current....so that once the protein is stuck on this membrane it stays there. This "blot" can then be probed with various antibodies on interest that are specific for interesting proteins or modifications of proteins (like phosphorylated forms).....and then these can be visualized using a secondary antibody that is tagged with a enzyme (like horse radish peroxidase) and specific for the primary antibody used...when substrate is added.....

So what am I looking for? Well, in this case I am trying to figure out the course of events that lead to cell death induction in cells treated with my compounds of interest.

At this point I am looking at proteins involved in cell cycle checkpoints, mostly with those involved in S phase/G2. The lucky candidates for now are Chk1 and Chk2 (and phosphorylated forms), and CDC25.

Anyway, you are probably all as bored as me by now....off for another timepoint....

So this bloody boy racer that has grown accustomed to letting it rip on our street at like 4am every night really got the joint going last night....so much so the fire department turned up!!!! I nearly lept out of bed, I think my heart did....when he rev'd and then made the machine backfire...sounded like an explosion...so obviuously somebody else thought it might have been one as well.....as it was not me that call emergency services.....what a loser. I do not know if boy racers are out there in high throttle in other countries as much as they are here....or in Auckland anyway....what a bunch of dumb asses.

So an hour later the alarm goes off.....I did my usuual....fall back asleep and awoke at 5:45....shit. Jumped up....got the tea going...clothes...hair....teeth.....shoes....um, where the F*!k are my keys.....GO.

Made it to the school just before the opening chant, cool. Got going, nice and warm, feelin fine. Standing all the way to warrior poses....have been stopping at parsvottanasana since Mysore when doing second....but I need the work in my legs to help stabilize this F'ing knee.

Kapotasana was AMAZING....so open, lots of heat, fireball pose. Leg behind head poses were the usual okay....really trying hard to get those hips going. Pincha M, held twice for 10 breaths each. On my embellished KV attempt I slooted the left leg in first...I know, but I ain't afraid of no black magic.....then just brought the right foot in behind...then lowered and went back up.....by lower I mean really just toilted at the hips as much as I could without loosing it, which was not much. Repeated, but this time dropped all the way...and I mean dropped...into giant heap....oh well.

Backbends rocked....did the whole lot....3 UD, 3 drop backs, tictacs, then 3 handstand drop overs, then scorpion, then assisted db's and chakra bandhasana was heavenly....the teacher brought the hands into place on the calves and I was balanced already...she just let go and I hung out there for awhile.....wow, felt great.

So excellent friday.....flying high. Should watch myself today clearly....will probably shout at people or something.

Headin off to Waiheke tomorrow for so R&R and a big do-up at a friends place to celebrate a new bub, new house and a bday....lots of Waihippy friends to catch up with....hang on the beach, check on our house.

How many of you were sucked into that on Sunday afternoons....well I have swapped the radio program for "Top Gear"....which has become a Sunday night ritual....sort of without realizing....hmm....

This past week was a tribute to Lambo's....my fav...1967 lime green, Miura....so gorgeous, so over the top, apparently so "faulty" as well but who cares.

Never been a car chic....not sure what rewiring has happened, but I am diggin the high end cars, man....recently spotted a plum Lambo not sure what the make was...., a bentley, two rolls, and a yummy "LOTUS"...all in the same neighboorhood.

And so it has felt for awhile now....this knee thing is a downer, and it is very hard not to complain about it. Still getting treatment. On the upshot, I was able to put the legs into lotus, while firmly holding the rt knee joint without pain....that is good. Of course that was left leg first I should say. Rolled around in lotus (GP) but did not attempt to get arms through. Able to do Mari B in lotus on both sides...but held back on Mari D....yesterady's practice was heavy and rough going most of the way....but despite that relaxed. Took two days of rest instead of one....missed practice this morning cuz I was up 5 times I think with the boys during the night....I can usually handle getting up twice, but much more than that these days I am way undercooked. So this afternoon I pick H up from his rock climbing camp and then head home for practice.....will grab a vid for him on the way, and of course also offer the offer of my other mat if he wants to join in.

As far as yoga goes....last week stunk. I did only primary series until Sat....at which point I FORCED myself to do second, although with ease. My knee has been such a downer....and just to make matters worse I must have slept funny one night OR SOMETHING? because my left hip and lower back were a mess as well. I asked for the "woohoo" adjustment in kapotasana to try and sort that out....OMG, thank you, B. (Adjustment is when teacher comes in between thighs to pull the sacrum up between them, making more room for extension in the lower back) I have not had that adjustment in so long....it is so amazing. So power packed.

Anyway, I then did Supta V with cross legs instead of lotus...not nearly as good....will try the left leg first lotus thing tomorrow, did not feel like I could face that fater such a nervous blow in kapotasana. ANd on the KV front....am trying to go into lotus with left leg first....we shall see if that works....is going to take awhile before I will be lowering down again.

Had emotional breakdown at work on Friday...lovely...and then skipped bday party thing on Friday night....I did not even call to say I was not going to make it....such a troll. Felt terrible. No one understands me these days....do I?

Sat....ended up sick, same for Sunday....major head cold....and now I am sniffling my way through work...hanging out for when I go and grab H from school so I can have my usual Monday afternoon practice at home. Try and work this cold out of me, gently that is.

Boys made cakes yesterday....one chocolate honey and the other ginger spice....I though they were actually okay....Craig thought they might have added their underwear to the concoction......but that they "looked" good.

As for things to look forward to....have and ink sesh tomorrow afternoon....hopefully will finish the outline...been 8 months since my last sitting.....woah.

I have found it very difficult to express in words what my trip to Mysore has meant to me....I should say first trip. Without a doubt it changed my world completely, how could it not.... I think I have found my time since then very difficult in so many ways....because the change that has happened within me is very difficult to manage in my "normal" life. I suppose that is really just another aspect of the process for me...to somehow cope with and understand.

It is funny....I have been feeling so sorry for myself....I really wanted to be in Mysore for Guruji's birthday. I "felt" like I should have been there......so much so that I have not even really been able to talk or write about it. I have been trying (in vane) to work out a way I might get there since I left in Feb. But I have also known the whole time that it was not realistic. But really it is not so much being at the birthday (although that would have been great of course) but taking time out to reflect on what Guruji has given me, what he means to me, what the yoga is about, how I fit with the yoga (or not at times).

I have not really done that....and perhaps that is why things around me have been complete shit. I have not given my thanks, expressed my sincerest devotion to this process to the SELF, to understanding, compassion, contentment, unity, equality..... I have been selfish, indeed...and avoided all of this TO WALLOW. What a crock! Perhaps I have even been afraid to be so open.

SO even though I am late on my birthday wishes...they do come from very deep within my heart. Happy Birthday, Guruji! And many blessings to you and your wonderful, amazing family in India, and around the planet.

This is one of two times ever in my tattooing life that I felt anxious about my session....like things in the world were a bit off or something.....and it had nothing to do with the moon or pms. SO I headed to Illicit with a little drag in my feet....

I stopped in last week to drop off more of the sanskrit I was considering and to go over what the next bit of outline was gonna be....more of the same really to finish it off over my right shoulder and down the side.....

SO we are talking RIBS.....as we were planning it, I was thinking OMG ribs, shit that is gonna hurt, I know it...but I am just not going to think about it.....

right, so in my state of mind yesterady afternoon....I was really fixating on the rib part of it...and seriously thinking about rescheduling....

But I sucked it in....went in head first...and it turned out okay...not even as bad as the collarbone really...although there are alot more ribs. SO the piece now extends down the back of the right shoulder and ends about 3 inches about the top of the hip bone. And I LOVE IT.

No practice this am....will probably do some in the afternoon at home....

My car life history is very sad.

1987 Plymouth Turismo "Duster"
1992 (I think) Toyota Tercel 2d, nothing "power", light sea green, aka "yoda"
1994 Isuzu pickup, with a cab
1987 or 8 Ford Escort "Pony" and it was light brown
1971 Mercedez automatic, 4d.... "the dream car" and Waiheke cruz mobile.
1987 Toyoto wagon...not sure of the model...was that metallic brown, but was called by the boys "the purple car" as altered reality runs in the family, clearly.
1992 Mitsu Chariot...7 seater, oh so close to a minivan, but yet so far, thank god, as I took the "I will never own a mini-van oath" in my early 20's.

So it appears that 1987 was good year on the car front, or perhaps that is what sticks out in the memory bank whether right or wrong. I loved the Merc, well if for no other reason than it was the same age as me and drove like a TANK...woohoo.

I thought I would also shed more clothes today and talk about my dream job.....and we are talking the childhood dream job....gas station attendent....pobably why the "car" thing is in full throttle in my mid 30's. All I wanted as youth was to throw on a pair of the ever so sexy blue overall, union suit thingies, changed into cutoffs and hang by the pump. And it just so happens that my family runs a general store....in Western Mass (STREETER's STORE, Bernardston) with at least 4 pumps, but you know what...NO GIRLS ALLOWED! WHat?! AS we all filed through the work force of Streeter's Store at one point or another in our lives since it's opening in, umm...long time ago by by great grandparents...the chics were behind the candy counter, and the boys...well, they got to deliver the fuel. DAMN.

Well it is not easy (even for a yoga person) to take photos of their own back....but here is one....

To be continued....

Just messing around afterschool...

And in each of these you will notice the yoga person's best friend....because there is no such thing as CENTRAL HEATING in NZ.

Conrad asked me yesterday if he could "grow down into a baby?"