et tu, setu?

A complete surpise to me: in a little less than 1 year, I have been given all of primary series. From how it was when I started, I was thinking..years. Of course, it takes me 2x as long as the (infamous) Sharath cd timing, which seems insanely fast to me. My desire to do a led class = zero. I did enough led vinyasa classes, and I don't feel the need for a too quick paced (for me) led class.  I would love to be able to breathe slower and deeper, but that will take serious time. I would just be happy for all the little nervous system breathing glitches I have to go away once and for all.

I am feeling a little less that new poses are a curse or burden, so to speak. Each new asana changes the experience of all the other asanas, sometimes only in very subtle, and not always in immediately helpful, ways. Thus, the new asana starts to make me pay attention to all the other ones, which can be exhausting.

I got setu bandhasana yesterday. Mostly, it was an awful lot of pressure on my neck. If I can turn off the part of my brain that expects things to be a certain way (success, failure, pain, difficulty) getting into difficult or new postures seems to go better. No wonder the series is meant to flow. Stopping means more possibility for this sort of thinking. In Setu, I think that the only thing I was really aware of besides my strained breath was the back of my neck. I could have sworn it was a neck-bend rather than a backbend that I was doing. I felt very relieved at the end of 5 short breaths (no 10 second inhales and exhales here...haha, as if I even could when I am at rest), and I plopped back down, instead of waiting for the correct vinyasa instructions (oops!) from my teacher.

Then I went on to backbending. I could feel a difference in my upper back - much more open- from doing just this one new pose. Sunday I will try giving up my backbending security blanket - half wheel - and go from setu to the full backbends. I guess being pushed encouraged to try new things with my practice is giving me a little more confidence to try some new things on my own: like coming up into headstand with straight legs, or realizing that I can drop the half wheel.

                    Last night, downtown brooklyn, on my way to ghenet for dinner.

I always forget how relaxed Brooklyn is, compared to the energy of Manhattan. It was a belated birthday dinner with a friend. I have never been good about celebrating my birthday, I usually avoid it, as I have had some rather disastrous things happen in the past, on the day. It was a good night with E, as usual, and we got to catch up with each other. She is much more adventurous than I with travel and meeting new people, and it always reminds me that these things are not so scary.

happy moon day.