Got my butt kicked.

That's what happens if you wait almost three weeks inbetween full primaries. Yow! I had yet another night of insomnia on Friday night (and, okay, two glasses of wine and a beer) so I felt quite tired. My back felt fine, and I felt bendy, but seriously lacking in stamina. Sometimes John just does primary series and sometimes he adds a bunch of extra stuff, like handstands inbetween each of the eight navasanas, and then a bunch of extra backbends and partner dropbacks. Today I am supersore in my hamstrings and the front of my shoulders.

Yesterday's class was also packed and it was my day to be annoyed by other yogis. There was one guy there who I'd never seen before, who did these jumpbacks that were almost like donkey kicks: his feet went way up into the air on the jump and a full two seconds after everyone else jumped back, his feet would hit the floor with a loud BANG!

Then there's a woman who I occasionally see who is a bit....odd. She comes into the studio with a gym bag full of stuff which she unpacks in the middle of the floor....clothes, water bottle, coffee cup, hair scrunchies, shirts, toothbrush & toothpaste...then she piles a bunch of it around her mat. She usually wears an assortment of jangly costume jewelry, too. Anyway, yesterday, she and all her stuff, and her cell phone, were next to me, and she did some major groaning and sighing. I can see it during the first sun salutations...but come on, by the prasaritas I was ready for her to knock off all the "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh"ing and "mmmmmmmmmmmmmm"ing.

Normally I can tune out the distractions, but we were packed in there so tightly yesterday that I couldn't, and once I notice something annoying, it's hard to do anything except become progressively more irritated by it!

In a couple hours I am going to a hot flow class, with a teacher who is also a butt kicker. I just ate a wrap with hummus and tabbouleh. He's going to love my garlicky breath!

Busy.

We had an awesome time in San Diego. Loved the city, loved Carlsbad, the beaches, and Legoland. Will was a total trooper on the flights - if I had known that they would be able to watch four and a half hours of Cartoon Network on the seat back tv's, I wouldn't have worried. I despise Cartoon Network, but it kept him quiet and happy each way. You gotta do what you gotta do, you know?

Been crazy since returning - we were only gone four days, but I am still not caught up on the laundry. Next weekend is a kids' consigment sale in which I participate twice a year - the spring sale kind of crept up on me. My dropoff day is next Tuesday and I have a million things to do between now and then, not the least of which is price all the shit I pulled out of the attic, including what must be at least a thousand dollars' worth of Thomas the Tank Engine stuff. My god, we spent a small fortune on the Thomas phase!

Yesterday morning was my first practice in a week - hot flow class. I was still trying to catch up on the water I didn't drink on our trip, so I felt kind of crummy and I struggled. Today I woke up with a scratchy throat & congested sinuses, so I didn't practice at all. I really had no desire to, until I surfed to a yoga blog - I don't remember whose - and all of the sudden I CAN'T WAIT to get back on my mat. I haven't done full primary in about two weeks.

Hopefully I will be able to breathe enough through my nose that I can do a hot flow class in the morning and then full primary at John's studio on Saturday morning. I know I am full of lame excuses, but I just can't muster the motivation to practice at home right now. It's too drafty and I can't get warm enough. I have paid John for six morning classes, so he should be putting them on the schedule soon.

Oh, and speaking of yoga, while we were eating lunch last Friday in Del Mar Beach, Lee goes "So, when are you going to yoga?" I just looked at him and said "I'm not going to yoga." He goes, "Oh, I thought you were." I gave him a LOOK. "When I brought it up, you gave me attitude and told me that if I went I'd be spending most of the day by myself because you and the boys didn't want to wait around on me to be done." He gave me a blank look and said "Oh, I just assumed you'd be going anyway."

GRRRRR. I could have gone to a Sunday morning class in Encinitas, but I didn't have my mat, no clothes, nothing.

Men.

Breakthrough practice and, we're off

Short & sweet here today - I've got to get going this morning! Valentine's Day party with the kindergarteners, a happy hour after school with friends & their kids, got to get the hamster farmed out for the weekend, etc. etc.

A few days ago we weren't sure if we were going to get to take our trip this weekend - Will started having intense hip pain on Monday afternoon which progressed to him not even being able to sit up on Tuesday morning without crying in pain, so, long story and six hours in the children's hospital ER later, he was diagnosed with transient synovitis, which means that a virus settled in the tissue lining his right hip joint and inflamed the tissue. The doctor said take Motrin for pain/inflammation and lortab to sleep at night, and by yesterday afternoon (I kept him home from school) he was barely even limping. So yeah, we still get to go to SD!

So I was tired and foggy-headed yesterday afternoon, feeling fat and toxic and housebound, so I went to a six o'clock hot flow class yesterday, expecting it to suck but wanting to go anyway. Low expectations! It absolutely rocked and my back and hips felt flexible like never before. Ustrasana? Check. Hands on floor. Supta vajrasana? Check. Shoulders comfortably on floor. Urdva dhanurasana? Check. Arms straightened effortlessly. Sirsasana? Check. No pain at all in lower back.

Driving home, I could still feel energy humming up and down my spine, and me, I had ten times more energy after practice than I did before.

No practice until next Wednesday, probably. But I can't wait to see if my regained flexibility is for real or just a fluke.

If anyone hears screams of joy on Saturday morning, that'll be my kids, when we arrive at Legoland.

Could I have found the cause of my back issues?

Thanks to Tova's comment in my last post, I went looking for information on the psoas, and, long story short, I think that I may have created my own problems by using a yoga ball to sit on at the computer, instead of a chair. I think that my posture, combined with trying to engage my core in order to balance, has shortened, strained, whatever, my psoas muscle.

Last week I ditched the ball and got a chair, and today, in the vinyasa class I took, I pushed up into urdva dhanurasana, and I wasn't even that warm, but it felt the best it has felt in six weeks.

I am going to continue to work on stretching my psoas, and see if it doesn't keep improving, if in fact that is what the problem is!

The excitement level is ramping up around here: it's all Legoland, all the time. The first thing Michael said today was "four more days until we go to Legoland!" I'm pretty excited, myself . Today I went to Target to pick up a few things for the trip and spent $96. How is that even possible?

I have to, um, facilitate Valentines for Will. I say facilitate because I am going to try to avoid having to do them all myself, but that is probably what will happen, because Will hates to write, draw, or scissor. Michael has opted not to do Valentines for his class. I asked him several times if he was sure. "I know all the girls will do them, and I know for a fact that of the boys, Grant and Garland are doing them." "I know. I still don't want to do them." "Are you sure you will feel okay about it if you are the only person who doesn't do them?" "Yes, I'm sure, I don't mind." Alrighty then! I admit feeling a pang that my little boy doesn't care about the Valentine's exchange with his classmates anymore, but then when he held my hand unselfconciously the whole walk home from school, I felt very happy.

In which Mama Yogini complains about her lower back again

Today, during the Core Power Flow class I took, all I could think was "I want to quit yoga". It didn't help that the room was too hot and I felt like throwing up, but my lower back and hips were totally uncooperative. One would think that as the class went on, the muscles would loosen, but the opposite happens.

I got a chiropractic adjustment yesterday; it made no difference at all.

Yesterday and Monday I did half primary at home. Everything felt good except for urdva dhanurasana and headstand. I cannot lift myself up in urdva dhanurasana without major protest from my hips and lower back, and in headstand, I felt major pressure on my hips and lower back. What the heck is going on?

It hurts the most right above my hipbones, toward the back. Those muscles are perpetually stiff and sore. The stiffness and pain extends across my lower back during any kind of backbend. I have played around with different combinations of dropping my sacrum, engaging or not engaging my glutes, engaging my core, whatever. If I can stand neutral, sacrum dropped but not pushed down, no muscle engagement except a firming of my core, that is when it feels the best.

I used to be able to put my hands on the floor in ustrasana, but my hips will not release enough anymore; I can barely touch my heels.

Bikram's supta vajrasana is another one which used to come easily:



I used to be able to rest my shoulders comfortably on the floor and have my arms over my head; now I can lower myself onto my elbows, then briefly onto my shoulders but then I come right back up, because the pressure on my lower back is too much.

The teacher threw ardha chandrasna into today's class:



which created an intense stretch in the area of my hips which is the most stiff and sore. No matter how much I'm stretching - and janu B creates that kind of stretch, and when practicing alone I sit in that posture for fifteen breaths on each side - it never seems to make a difference later. It feels good at the time, but there is no cumulative effect.

So what am I supposed to learn here? Wait, I know. It's that I should go back to running four miles several times a week. Yeah, that's it!

Gratifyingly excited.

We told the boys this morning about the upcoming Legoland trip. I presented them each with a folded map of the park printed off the internets and said "we're taking a trip during the upcoming long weekend, guys." Michael ripped his open and shouted "Legoland? Are we really going to LEGOLAND??" Then he began leaping around the room and yelling. Will was more sedate, but still excited and immediately began speculating about what he might be able to buy at the Lego store there. Then I left Lee with the chaos and went to yoga. HA!

Last night I read online reviews of Legoland. Most of them were positive, though almost all of them said that Legoland was best suited for kids ten and under, which makes me really, really glad we are taking this trip now. They are only young once, which is what I keep chanting to myself when I think about how much the whole thing will have cost when it's over. If we waited until we could really afford it, Michael would probably be too old to appreciate it.

After completing our taxes last night, I felt better still that we were going. Lee's firm owes him money which I was counting on when I made our reservations, but a client owes *them* money, hundreds of thousands of dollars, which they know they will get, but not when. His law partner asked if she could pay him what he's owed later, after the firm gets paid. So I was a bit uneasy about the trip plans when I found that out, but since I e-filed our returns, we should have our refund in hand around the time we leave.

When I got home from yoga, Michael and I got out his atlas and studied a map of California, checking out the topography and what's nearby. I'm going to let him go online and do some research on Southern California and have him tell us what he learns.

So, onto this morning's practice. I meant to dose myself with Motrin before I went, to make my lower back feel better, but I forgot in the Legoland excitement. My hamstrings felt stretchier than usual, perhaps aided by the fact that John made us hold each of the prasaritas for ten breaths each. All of the forward folding postures felt great. John wasn't nearby to help me into supta kurmasana, so with a bit of rocking, I got my own ankles crossed. Everything else felt great and solid...until we got to the dreaded urdva dhanurasana.

I'm not sure what approach to take with this struggle. I am tempted to quit doing any kind of backbending altogether. My lower back just does not want to bend and my hips don't want to cooperate either. No matter how much I lengthen, engage my core, avoid compressing, push into my chest, whatever...it's like, imagine trying to bend your finger backward. It can go there very reluctantly if it's pushed, but it certainly doesn't feel natural and it hurts.

Why is this happening? I have never been great at backbending, but it has never been so difficult as it is now.

Perhaps I'm just getting old. You know, I used to be able to drop a few extra pounds without much difficulty, but maybe because I'm no spring chicken anymore, that doesn't happen, as I discovered while bound in supta k, contemplating the fat that has settled on my belly and will not budge.

Let's all sing together, what a drag it is, getting old....