Tough astanga class last night. Sarah said she was really pleased I was committing to an astanga practice. That slightly scared the shit out of me, but I guess it's true. When I first knew her, all I did was hatha. I didn't really get that there were other options. Astanga feels so different. It's so completely energetic, which, although I'm pretty active, is not my natural state of affairs (although I am now able to start jumping through to forward fold at the end of a flow). It starts off slow and then suddenly, as you get into Surya Namaskar B, it speeds up and I haven't yet quite kept up, unlike everyone else in the class!
Sarah says that you don't have to keep up, you can be a breath behind, that it's your own practice, and she's right, but I think I'm still relatively early days, I'm still working out quite how to make sure I'm doing the postures right, using the correct parts of my anatomy, and that slows me down. This was particularly evident last night as I lowered through high plank to low plank - Tammy's lessons about using your triceps and core to lower down were running through my mind - as I was dropping my knees first and slowing everything down.
Sarah gave me some valuable tips, though. She knows my open hips well, so actively tries to prevent me from relying on them, rather trying to help me focus on opening up through my lower back, tucking my tailbone under and not flaring my ribs, all of which I'm prone to doing. In bridge, she suggested grabbing the mat and pulling it towards me to help open up my shoulders - revolutionary!
Another completely amazing tip, which I had never even thought about, was how I'm doing downward dog. I wasn't locking my elbows and had my hands wide and facing forward to give space in the shoulders, but she told me to slightly turn my hands and the side of my arms out more to create more openness through the shoulder. I could immediately feel it in my shoulder blades, totally different. Amazing how something so tiny can be so huge as a change.
The lack of flexibility in my lower back means I struggle with various postures (particularly anything where your legs go past your head - without a ball or something similar I just can't even get near it) but Sarah had options for everything - me and another woman just flexed our feet up and held them vertically while other people did shoulder stands and so on.
Although I have no plans to ever do headstand, I quite happily was able to get into headstand prep, which is a bit like a narrower downwards dog - you've got your elbows close together, your forearms down and your legs up into a close downward dog-type thing - and your head off the mat. Training means I will end up being able to teach headstand, even if I can't do it myself, so it's good to get as close as possible without pressurising the neck.
One thing I did enjoy was boat pose - I've done it in various yoga classes and I'm sure some Pilates ones too. I am not amazing at it but I really enjoy it. I think there's a variation we do in a seated posture too where you hook your fingers around your toes and stretch your legs up straight. Bloody hard but really fun. As was the whole thing, really, although I definitely need better yoga kit - I'm sick of constantly tugging it up and down.
Today I had an unexpected visit to the dentist thanks to a baby tooth cracking at the side on Friday (I suspect a rogue seed from six weeks ago that got trapped and had to be full-on dragged out, sigh). I had to get a small filling to avoid anything from gathering in the 'dent' (she said) in my tooth. Because of this, I had to work through lunch and couldn't go to yoga. I also copped out of Pilates (not that I would ever normally make that class) and Body Pump tonight, since I'm knackered and my triceps and core aches a great deal. I think I'm making excuses, but tonight I'm just too tired to care.
Here's a link Jo sent me for how to work on side plank
Here's some nice backbends I came across