Patrick's Page

It could be the car accident (a lady rushed a red and crashed into the passenger side of my Saturn), the partner's few weeks of back pain, the start of the semester, or something else, but I have officially fallen off the asana practice train. Oh well, this happens. I'll have more updates or details or something, soon. Cheers!

Sunday I was all cranky in the hip flexors and the sinuses, so did 6 sun salutations and that was enough; then I just broke into whatever poses I wanted, that pulled the flexors open. LOTS of seated twists, halfmoon with the top leg in a bow pose position, a few backbends (bow, camelish positions). A lot of freeformish play.

Monday, I led a Primary series at night, and before that, went to a vinyasa class heavily influenced by Anusara yoga. Lots of scissoring the thighs together; standing flows… Continue

Backwards in time first: this morning, I put in the 8 am vinyasa class, which again was marvelous. Warriors, halfmoons, bow pose, backbends, twists, and a long shoulderstandish closingish series. Mmmmmm mmmmm good.

Friday: some general rolling around on the floor, very informal practice. Lots of twists and hip openers, lots of moves taken from Matthew Sweeney's sequences, but informal. If the WYPM rules are "ten minutes of anything," this counts.

Thursday: practice only in the form of demo-ing… Continue

Tuesday night vinyasa class, ahhhh. Tons of standing flows, halfmoons, triangles, side angles revolved and not, and then the arm balance show--side cranes and scissors, bakasana, eka pada galavasana, tripod headstands, and hip openers--baddha konasana, agnistambhasana (double pigeon). lots of poses i used to hate, that now i don't, so much. brilliant class.

It's so much easier when there's a class rather than home practice. Intro to Intermediate tonight, which was more like 2/3 of Intermediate. For those of you who've never met the Intermediate (2nd) sequence of Ashtanga yoga: it's a giant twist, a huge forward bend, seven (!!) backbends, two twists, three foot-behind-head moves, a forward-bendy arm balance sequence, two inversions, and then three various sun-salutation power moves, followed finally by a big side bend, a lovely hip opener, and the… Continue