It's been a long time since I've posted something here. But the fruits of ashtanga yoga I'm harvesting make me more and more enthusiastic about my practice. First of all - Chaturanga! I nailed it! Now it feels so nice and easy, I enjoy the work of muscles in my arms and can hover over the floor for 5 breaths and more, that's amazing feeling!

And something else - Shirshasana, or headstand. Technically, it's a handstand because you are only able to stand if you engage your shoulder strength. After two months of 4-5 days a week practice and with my teacher holding me or spotting for me, I'm now confident in my Shirshasana and can even do it without a wall behind me. That's a perfect example of how patience and constant practice bring you to amazing results.

The next aim is to reach my ankles in backbends. That doesn't feel very easy and once I'm in the bridge position I can only move my hands towards my heels just a little bit and picking off my hands feels somehow scary. I'll make sure to try again tomorrow.

Good news for me by the way is that I finally moved to my new room in a flat facing the main square of the city, and the yoga center is just 30 seconds of running :) I still have to buy some furniture because the room is completely unfurnished but I already imagine my happy life there. Until the moment I realize I need to go to Southern hemisphere or elsewhere, haha :) The room is very spacious measuring 17 square meters with a window, white walls and black carpeting on the floor. I'll make it looking very zen, or at least a bit zenish :)

My fourth week of Ashtanga yoga practice :) I'm still in the service and still full of enthusiasm to continue! I don't do 6 days a week practice, it's more 4.5 days a week, as there are no classes on Tuesday and Wednesday and I skip alternate Sundays as I go to visit my parents once-twice a month. Still, I'm feeling good and proud of myself. The only thing that still bothers me during classes is that I pay attention to what other people are doing. All ladies in my class are more advanced than me, I'm the only beginner, so they are more stretchable and have more power to be able to do handstands and enter Marichyasana D without any problem.

Today I learned a new asana - Kurmasana and Supta Kurmasana.

When my teacher tied me into Supta Kurmasana I asked her to help me untie from this posture as I could not get how I could be done into this knot :) Also I finally understood what is important to do in order to perform Chaturanga Dandasana. I still use my knees because cannot yet hold my body over the ground but I guess the important factor here is to spread the fingers on your hands to have a stable foundation.

The other day me and my friend Olga, who has an Indian husband and lives in Delhi, were discussing the situation with yoga in India and in the West. If you ask someone in India what is yoga and if they practice yoga and what it is for in 90% of cases you won't get a clear answer and you'll realize that people in there simply do not pay attention as they don't have time because they need to work. The chances are higher that some Western girl will tell you something about Veda than you hear something essential from the person who lives in the Motherland of this great book. The world is turning upside down -- West seeks spirituality, East seeks more money.

Challenge - Chaturanga Dandasana

Well, this posture looks very easy (as well as other postures like warrior for example) but once you try to do it yourself you understand that things are not what they seem anymore. For chaturanga you got to have really strong shoulders in order to lower over the ground not touching the floor with your belly or chest, just hands and feet. The way I do it is something like jumping to a plank posture and then crashing down on the floor :) I try hard not to but I don't have any strength to keep me hovering over the floor. I decided to look for some tips on how to improve my Chaturanga Dandasana and build strong hands, so here it is:

Yoga.isport.com

And here are some video tips from Kino Macgregor! I just love her way of demonstrating. That smile is so important!

My teacher also keeps reminding us about importance of vinyasas and that we don't need to do them as fast as possible but try to do them properly and sometimes stay in Chaturanga, Upward or Downward facing dog for some time in order to feel the effect of the postures. Vinyasas are very important for building strength which will be later used for handstands and arm balances.

I also need to improve my belly muscles so I can lift myself properly for vinyasas and Utpluthih pose as well as Navasana (oh Gosh I was so ashamed I cannot hold those legs straight pfff).

Here we go, today I did my first headstand (which is technically an armstand as there should be almost no pressure on the head). Of course I did it with the help of Tanya (my teacher) and she circled her hands 10cm  around my legs in the air so that I could balance and not fall down in case I'm not stable. I didn't do the headstand against the wall as I remember I once did at one of my hatha-yoga class. That time the teacher helped me enter the asana but it was feeling really scary and I was not confident in myself at all. Don't know whether it's the teacher or my own perception or the both, but with Tanya it was quite easy (yet I cannot stand without her spotting for me) and feeling nice.

I can do half of the primary series asanas I guess, yet all primary Marichyasanas are still difficult for me, especially B and D.

Marichyasana C, ashtangayoga.info

Marichyasana D, ashtangayoga.info

My back and spine are not flexible enough and sometimes I think I just got too much fat on my belly :) Well, not that I'm fat but I have a couple of odd samtimeters that would be good to get rid of. Tomorrow there is no class so I will have to practice at home on my own. That's challenging, as I am quite disorganized person. Downloaded primary series video by Sharath Jois, so he will be my teacher tomorrow :)

Also yesterday I was doing chakrasana vinyasa (backward rolling from seated position) and looks like I hurt some muscle near my left scapula. Hope there is nothing serious with it and it will be ok in a few days. Another issue I'm having is coccyx pain. I didn't have any trauma recently and didn't fall on it so not really sure why I feel pain. It doesn't hurt all the time, just when I'm applying pressure to hip and pelvis muscles. I read on the internet there might be a tumor pushing the coccyx and making it hurt but I really hope there is nothing like that. Tanya said maybe intensive yoga practice activated a lot of cleaning and detoxifying processes in my body and this pain appeared from salts deposited in the coccyx due to seated activity and unhealthy way of life, so now those salts are releasing and giving me discomfort. Let's see, if it doesn't go away I'll have to consult a doctor (which I really don't want to do).

After my first intensive Ashtanga yoga class (which was preceeded by intro-class the previous day) I could barely put my pants on and my knees were trembling when walking. After all it didn't seem to be that fun and easy as I first thought. But I decided to go ahead and start practicing. Class starts at 8.05am. That's not easy for me as I'm pretty much the owl type - go to bed late and wake up late. But something on Earth had to correct my discipline and Ashtanga yoga turned out to be the one. It's a challenge for me not only physically but emotionally and mentally - to keep practicing 5 times a week, to organize my life according to the new schedule and, what is the most important about it, to be happy. And I am happy. Having quite a boring life with lots of bugs dancing in my head and weird thoughts is not easy and I can easily fall into depression (the lonely soul, you know) and especially that weather is getting worse each day (autumn time) I pray to the Universe not to have seasonal affective disorder this time which kicks me out of track till the first snow. Of course it's easy to say that I just have to be stronger and get over this period much easier and believe in myself but that's only easily said. I truly believe Ashtanga yoga appeared in my life for a reason. I keep some dreams in my head and currently working hard on making them come true in 2-3 years, till then - I'll do my practice and make it the sense of my life for the time being. I sincerely hope it will change my personality for the better, will calm my excited mind and open up some doors I never thought exist.

Breathing

One of the most important aspects of Ashtanga yoga is special breathing which is called Ujjayi breath. Our teacher says - come on come on, create that sea noise. And it really sounds like sea. The idea is to inhale while shutting down your glottis a bit, in this case you will hear some noise coming out from your throat which is always a bit louder (in my case) on exhale because when we talk the voice also emerges when air comes out through vocal chords. Actually, sometimes this breathing reminds me a light snoring :) It is very important to keep breathing and movements synchronized and to breathe with ujjayi all the way through the session. Sometimes I cheat though. It's not actually cheating but in some asanas I just feel I need more air because ujjayi breathing is difficult in some positions and in those occasional moments I gasp air with normal way of inhaling. Hope as soon as I become more experienced my asanas won't be so difficult to enter and keep ujjayi breath at the same time. Overall this breathing heats your inner fire and believe me, it's not just words, it really works, you get heated up from inside which allows to you to stretch more and go beyond the limits which you thought you have.

Today I was trying a new asana - Pindasana. This is where I lost my ujjayi breath for a moment :)

How it started

Well, once in the office building where my company is located I saw an advertisement of yoga class called Yogalight. Since it was just two floors away from our office I decided to give it a try, contacted the responsible person and had my first yoga session after work. It was a small studio and we were practicing hatha-yoga. The teacher was nice and she always told us not to force ourselves to do something if we cannot. I have to say I rarely did something out of my league and sometimes felt the asanas are too easy for me (if we leave out the headstand). Since the class started at 6.30pm and I finished my work around this time too I always rushed to finish all my tasks and go for the session. However, it turned out that I didn't always manage to be on time and could afford just one class per week. I noticed this once-a-week attendancy was not very efficient as I always felt how stiff my body got if I didn't practice for a long time, and believe me, 6 days break in yoga world is a long time.

So, I decided to look for another yoga school. My former collegue once told me she's attending yoga classes at 8 o'clock in the morning. And there I was - contacting the teacher of the school to fix the introductory class for me. And guess what - it was Ashtanga yoga class. I didn't look specifically for this method, I was simply looking for convenient schedule.

One beautiful Sunday I woke up at 5.30am in order to be on time for my first session due at 6.30am. I knew there would be just me and the teacher since another lady cancelled just the day before. The city looked so nice early morning. Trust me, I'm a 100% owl, and getting up that early isn't a piece of cake for me, but I was so proud and glad I made it! The teacher was very nice and attentive and introduced me into Ashtanga yoga practice which I already knew was something different from a traditional hatha-yoga. After the class I was happy and feeling so light. I was looking forward to the next day to join the general group and telling people around me how inspired I feel. I also shared these feelings with my good friend Asta from Lithuania who currently lives in Brighton. Guess what - now she is into Ashtanga yoga too, hehe! :)