Today's practice.

Too bad I can't think of anything more creative to call this post, because today's practice is worthy of poetry or, I don't know, an aria or something.

It was the intermediate level Primary, which I have taken before and it has been most, but not all of primary, geared toward people who are not ready for the full primary (like me! or so I thought!). The teacher seemed to know all the other people who came, and I guess they were all fairly advanced, so she said she was going to teach the whole thing. When she said that, I was thinking uh oh, wish I were in the very back of the room.

But it all turned out okay. In fact, much better than okay. It ROCKED. I felt strong and bendy, my chatarangas continue to improve, and I had no trouble keeping up with the pace. The only place I felt a little hesitation was when she threw a bakasana into the series, somewhere before dandasana....at least I had heard of it before on Julie's blog. ;-) I didn't know how to do it, though. Anyway, the more we went on, the stronger I felt, the deeper I got into down dog, the more I felt like I might actually be able to jump through in this lifetime...

When we got to mari A, she came and adjusted me, pulling my arms up and away from my back. Wow, that worked my arms. Usually I just bind and then hang out, but she had them working. I bound, well, not effortlessly, in mari D, but on my own within two breaths, on both sides. At this point I felt like I was at my peak; I had worked up a good heat and wasn't tired, and feeling like I was having a good practice got the adrenaline flowing. When we got to kurmasana, I got way more into it than ever before. I was thinking "how did I do this?!?" My legs were not quite straight, but my chin was on the floor. For supta kurmasana, I figured I'd just stay there, but she came over and rotated my arms around so they'd move back. I scooted my feet closer together, and she crossed them; then I reached my arms around and could touch my fingers; she pulled my arms just a little bit closer together and I bound! I was grinning like a fool, right into my mat. I guess it'll be a while before I can get there on my own, but once she got me there, I felt fine, no struggle.

I skipped the two chakrasanas - I'll attempt them again when my Manduka mat gets here - but I did everything else. I even did the correct number of rolls to get around in garbha pindasana - it wasn't pretty, and I didn't have my arms threaded through my legs, but I did it. We did three fairly quick backbends in a row, coming down onto the tops of our heads in between - which I had never done before, but I liked being able to readjust the position of my hands for the next one.

I attempted two wobbly half-headstands while everyone else raised and lowered their legs from headstand. I swear one day I am going to conquer headstand! I am!

I thought that I would just melt into the floor during savasana, but in fact the opposite happened; I felt very revved up and I could not keep my mind still. Over and over again I brought my focus back to my breath but over and over again I lost it.

Throughout the afternoon I've thought this morning's practice and I get a little thrill of excitement and happiness every time.

Shrimp poppers revisited

What I found out when I picked Will up from school this afternoon was a little bit of a buzz kill, unfortunately. As mentioned in the previous post, the boys were allowed to have the hot lunch at their schools today, which was shrimp poppers, tater tots, and applesauce. A microscopic nugget of shrimp! Enrobed in deep fried goodness! Yum! Well, because I rarely let Will have hot lunch - Michael has it a little more often - it is considered a treat. I think the last time Will ate hot lunch was Thanksgiving, when Lee went and had lunch with him.

So I walk up to get Will and Ms. G tells me that he had the pb & j sack lunch instead of shrimp poppers because this morning, when he got to school, he forgot to move his lunch clip to the "hot lunch" board. They are supposed to know to do this when they get to school. I am not 100% sure of the procedure, but I suspect that because Will so rarely eats hot lunch, he forgot. Well, because he forgot, she made him 'default' to the sack lunch. I think she could tell by my face that this was more than just a little deal...it's stupid, but it really was a treat for him, and I told her that it was. She apologized, and I think she felt bad. I asked if he got upset, and she said that for a minute he did, but then he recovered and he was fine.

In all fairness, this is the very first time that I have had any sort of issue at all with his teacher, whom I really like. She is quite structured, but very warm, fun, and loving to all the kids.

I felt terrible. I wished that I had shrimp poppers (I keep typing "poopers") for him for dinner. I want to cuddle him in my lap and let him eat all the shrimp poppers he wants while I rub his back and tell him what a sweet, good boy he is and how much I love him.