January 2018 Ashtanga Practice Journal

1/11/18 - First Practice in 2018

I am glad to be back from the 18 day vacation in Thailand. One of the most excited things to be back is to go to the Mysore room and get back to my routine, my practice.

I was worried this morning for not practicing for 18 days, longest break I've ever had. I thought my body would be stiff, but it wasn't. That said, I scaled back on my practice to ease my way in. Surprisingly, I felt great besides my hamstrings were slightly tighter than usual. I was able to bind in Pasanasa this morning, which I've only done for few times. How excited! I didn't expect it to happen. My hubby said that was because of massages we had in Thailand.  Maybe?

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1/15/18 - Hamstrings are Talking to Me

I knew it's gonna happen. My hamstrings are super sore from the practice on Jan 11th. It's been four days and they still hurt. I had no choice but backed off from all the forward folds this morning. In addition, I wasn't able to bind in Pasasana, back to normal. Well, I just need to accept the fact that the body isn't the same everyday.

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1/24/18 - Gazing Point in Backbends

Over the last week, I have been playing with the gazing point in backbends, particularly in Urdhva Mukha Svanasana. I was listening to the latest episode of Ashtanga Dispatch Podcast - Ep31: Eddie Stern, it was so inspiring. I could listen to it over and over without getting bored. I kept finding hidden gems from this podcast. What I wanted to share today was the gazing point in backbends, which I learned from the podcast.

During my practice, I went over at least 50 rounds of Chaturanga - Urdhva Mukha Svanasana - Adho Mukha Svanasana. Often time, I flew through these poses and neglected some important details. What I focused on lately was to look at my nose in upward facing dog. Normally, I would look up and expected to go deeper in the backback. On the contrary, I cranked into my neck and did nothing to lengthen my upper back. As Eddie mentioned in the podcast, since the neck and lower back have the same curvature, as we look up, we tend to shorten (crank) the neck as well as lumber vertebrae. This is one of the causes that many people complain lower back pain when doing backbends. As I experimented in upward facing down by gazing at the nose, I was able to keep the neck long, and allowed myself to lengthen the upper back and work on the real backbend. Love it! I really enjoy working on details for fundamental postures, which will be beneficial for advanced asanas.