Followed my friend Michael’s advice (on getting more of a workout from my yoga) & added more work in the vinyasas.
Normally I’d been doing 2 handstands in the opening – after utkatasana & virabhadrasana II – and holding them 5 breaths each. I also swing up on the exits from krounchasana, 1 leading leg style, and on the exits from ustrasana & laghu vajrasana. I do all those by a wall and then 3 freestanding handstand-to-ticks in closing back bending.
Today I added 5 in the surya As, and I did 5 navasana handstands, not just 1 on the exit like usual. I couldn’t “thread the needle” & successfully come back down & through at all but that wasn’t the main goal.
I also tried raising the hips more, thinking “toward the ceiling” on my jump backs. Wasn’t too good at that, though I’ve been able to do the no touch kind since I was doing just led class at the gym. I learned that skill nearly two decades ago.
I’d have had 19 handstands but I had to repeat the first tick, because Rocco (the dog) chose the absolutely worst moment to get in my space. I was a little nervous about my arm strength reserves, considering all the extra stuff I’d done, and it’d taken me three tries to stick the first one, so I was pissed and yelled at her.
We all know yogic calm is a myth anyway, except those people who’ve never spent much time with yoga practitioners and thus tend to believe those kinds of fables. Hell, I remember reading a book by a typically doughty Iyengar yogi, Eric Schiffman, years ago & he told a story about Iyengar punching him in the face during practice, like that was some kind of honor. He seems like a pretty merry cherub though so I guess no harm done.
I still might do my cropped ashtanga with HIIT again this week though. I don’t know that I want to ask my shoulders to do all that more than a 2/3 times a week. Oh! Also threw in one more pose after headstand: gomukhasana. Figured that’d be a good idea.
