Smoking

Last night, after taking Michael to a private screeing of "Shrek the Third" (a friend whose mom could get tickets to the screening invited Michael's class) I met some mom friends out for a drink. In all, there were about eight of us. Of this eight, only two of us did not smoke, me and my friend Gwen. All of these women are smart, beautiful and funny moms. One of them practices Iyengar yoga and pilates very regularly, eats an extremely healthy diet with no sugar or refined grains, yet she smokes. Another woman's husband has just finished undergoing chemotherapy for a tumor on his vocal cords. All of these women have several young kids each.

Gwen and I were freezing and wanted to move inside, but couldn't because the others wouldn't be able to smoke.

Smoking is such a vile, unhealthy habit and I can't understand it. I wish they wouldn't smoke, for their own sakes. Maybe because they're not heavy smokers, it's justifiable in their minds.

Anyway....after drinking two Stella drafts last night and not getting to bed until about 11:45, I thought I'd be hurting at practice today. I wanted to have a great practice, because at home yesterday I worked on headstand and lowering my legs halfway (which explains why my shoulders and collarbones are achy today). I thought I didn't have the core strength for it, but apparently I do! I did it several times, getting used to shifting my weight a little bit backwards to compensate for my legs coming down. I also practiced bhujapidasana, after reading about it at the ashtanga forums....as suggested, I focused on lifting up my tailbone more than trying to tilt forward, and it works...still not anywhere near the floor with my forehead yet, though, and I can't figure out how to make my crossed feet clear as I go forward - but that's the way to go about it.

So there were three of us there for class today and the other two are newer at it than I am, so John did the intermediate level primary and skipped everything from bhujapidasana to whatever comes before setu bandasana. We did a couple of killer backbends, by which time I was really, really tired. I had trouble with my breath today, a hard time focusing and I felt a bit short of breath. I also felt very head-rushy during the surya namaskars and saw spots several times when I returned to samasthiti. So by backbends, I was huffing like a steam engine. On the third backbend, John came over and pushed on my knees, trying to make them straighter and trying to get me to inch them back toward my hands, but I had to shake my head 'no' because I was about to come down on my head.

Unfortunately, I was really out of gas for headstands, so when I tried to pike back down halfway, my legs just came all the way down....no strength left to hold them up. I did hold my headstands for ten breaths each, though.

After thinking about chakrasana yesterday and how afraid of it I am, I decided I needed to push out of my comfort zone so after class I asked John if he would help me with it next week and he said he would. I also tried it a couple times on the carpet when I got home from class...I can't seem to lift myself off my head with my hands. I think it's all momentum that gets me over, and I keep coming up slightly to the left. I felt encouraged that I did it without hurting myself, though.