summer reading

My attempt to read Kino's book has been delayed for a couple months, til more are printed. I decided to buy Guruji instead, which I have been savoring this week during my breaks from my training. I am only about a quarter way through it, but I especially enjoyed David Swenson's interview. His circuitous path to his asthanga practice really resonated with me. I always have this image in my head that people who are great teachers find this practice early on and don't stop practicing once they start, and that they don't try other styles of yoga or other things altogether. I hope I get to study with him at some time.

I ordered some books by Ellen Langer on mindfulness and learning, and of course more books by Moshe Feldenkrais. What I need now are some good novels to read.

I am a bit braindead from the 9 day Feldenkrais training. Hopefully, I will manage a post on that later this week. It has been a week of kinesthetic dreams, mostly yoga and/or family related. I discovered today during the training, that I can fall asleep lying on my side with my arm up in the air; made me feel like a little kid again.

Practice today was good, but heavy. I felt weak, even though I had a rest day on Saturday. The highlight of the day was that I managed to walk my hands in during my last backbend. It is not the depth of the backbend that I cared about, but that I could lift my hands one at a time to move them (no snaking them along my mat). I must be getting more weight in my legs at last. I have been able to stay an extra breath or two at times this week, and I want to build up my time in my backbends to strengthen my legs. My balance also seems to have returned this week. I did UHP by myself twice this week, and it went pretty well both times. I think I just fell out once each time, before the last bit on the second side. I don't know if it was the Feldenkrais, or maybe a bit more sleep, or both. I hope it continues.


My rather uncontrolled jumping through has also been scaled back to jumping with crossed legs and working towards having some control when I land (maybe next lifetime?). I miss the flowing sense of jumping through with straight-ish legs, but after impaling my feet on my mat, I can live without it for long while. Plus, it gives me a little more energy for the rest of my practice, which I could definitely use. 

Lastly, I am slowly realizing the importance of the breath to the practice. This is what I most want to work on now.