First Day of Spring

You know you live in New England when it snows on the first day of spring.  Delightful.  After Friday's unseasonably warm day, I was ready for spring and was bitterly disappointed when snow started to fall.  Every year, I know we'll have late snow and every year I hope we won't.  I was so distraught by the snowfall that I found myself distracted throughout the standing series.  My eye would wander over to the whitened windows and I would heave a sigh before beginning the next posture.  It was very disheartening.  Spring, please?

I struggled in the balancing series for other reasons, though.  My performances Standing Forehead to Knee and Standing Bow must be inversely proportional to each other because if I do well in the former, I do very badly in the latter.  That was the case today.  I was able to lock my leg out on both sides for the entire first set of Standing Forehead to Knee and got my forehead on my knee on both sides for a good couple of seconds.  So, naturally, I was falling all over the place in Standing Bow.  I think my main problem is that I'm still trying to get my leg up higher than our photo shoot, but in order to do that, I need to find some softness through my spine and, more troublingly, I need to slide my hand down from my ankle onto my shin.  I am over thinking this.  Thursday I need to just drop my story and do it!!

However, by the time we got to the floor and I couldn't see the snow anymore, my practice improved significantly.  Maybe it's the pride in my standing series, my confidence with the floor postures, or maybe the short naps we get to take between postures, but for some reason, I'm much happier once we hit the floor. Don't get me wrong, the floor series isn't any easier than the standing series, but the short savasanas we take between sets mean I can really put all of my effort into each posture, knowing I'll get to refuel shortly.

Positive Posture: Standing Separate Leg Stretching, Hands to Feet

<--Yeah, it looked like that.

Now that I've been stretching them regularly for three weeks (yay!), my hamstrings have loosened significantly.  At first I wasn't able to get my head to the floor with the widest of stances, but today I brought my feet in by several inches and still managed to graze the floor with my forehead.  It still makes me nervous when Vicki tells me to roll more weight into my toes--what if I pitch forward and fall on my face?  It's happened before!  Yet I've found that the more I lock out my legs and lift my hips up, the less danger of embarrassing tumbles.  Hoo-ray.

Negative Posture: Camel

                                                               It did not look like this -->

Oh, this one was disappointing today.  I felt loose and lifted in the spine and really needed the shoulder stretch, but my left knee was giving me a hard time.  I already have a tender left knee, but I can usually get through the series just fine.  I don't know if the snow made it ache or if I was just sitting on the wrong part of the bone, but it was acutely painful to lean my hips forward in Camel today.  Vicki suggested that if I have this problem again, I can roll up my towel and use it as padding.  I'll keep that in mind should my knee again decide to be uppity.

Week 3, finished!  Vinyasa with Kate tomorrow.

-Allie