It's been a challenging week for my practice - I haven't! I went to mysore last week and found that almost as soon as I had started, I couldn't catch my breath. I've experienced this in Surya Namaskar B before, but never throughout the rest of the practice. I wondered if it was to do with having eaten something (a small pot of noodles) only an hour beforehand, as normally I'd give it a couple of hours at least, and became rather anxious. Normally I have this under control but my silly brain didn't want to.
I ended up leaving after standing sequence. I did one pose in seated and suddenly thought, what am I doing here? I don't feel right, breathing isn't helping, I should head. I emailed my teacher when I got home and she wrote back later, wondering if it was to do with my mood (I had been chatting on the phone when I arrived and also chatting with another student, at her behest), and made some valid points about mindset, but then the next morning I woke up with razor blade throat, and have not been very well since.
I cancelled Saturday morning as I really wasn't feeling well - I have been battling throat/chest/sinus fun all weekend, had a stinking migraine on Friday night after a 12 hour day interviewing at work, and then felt nauseous, woozy and headachy all Saturday, exhausted all Sunday (though that may have in part been to do with the camping trip I took on a cold January evening with 75 other women - more another time!) and Monday.
I made the call on Tuesday to cancel Wednesday yoga, even though I have retrospectively realised it would be a moon practice (my favourite!) because of the weird blue blood moon that's about at the moment. Shame, but I wasn't feeling very good - although I actually think I would have been able to manage it, maybe it's better just to chill this week and get back to it on the weekend. This way of thinking has been borne out by the joyous advent of feeling intensely anxious tonight, probably because...
...it's a week until I'll hear whether I've got on the yoga teacher training course I want to do. Kind of a big deal for me. Also work is busy, and I am having to buck myself up as little bits of me are struggling with confidence at the moment (I'm not doing anything wrong, no one is being negative, I'm just doubting myself and my inability to keep a straight face in meetings when presented with unexpected things...)
In more positive news, my new mat came. I got a green Liforme. It's much heavier than I expected, and I'm a little nervous about lugging it about all over London in years to come, but hey, it's meant to be quality. I haven't tried it out yet but will definitely be doing so in the next few days. I also received a BRIGHT GREEN Infinity band, which is a stretchy yoga band in the shape of the infinity loop which you can use to help you get into binds and positions like supta hasta padangusthaasana (if you're like me and have no flexibility whatsoever in your back).
Also, last week, I got to teach a friend (in some ways). She's been training to teach yoga but with a really limited course and little to no prior experience of yoga. I was going to bunny for her (i.e. get her to teach me) but in the end I ended up teaching her more than I did what she told me to do. I hope it was helpful, and it was also good to be able to see where I'm at in terms of helping other people. The yoga teacher at our gym has asked me to do covers when I'm allowed to teach, which is exciting, I just need to get on the course and get on with it now!