Trick Knees and Primary with Guruji

On the iPod this morning during the drive to work:  N.E.R.D. – Lapdance  If you’ve never heard the song, it’s nothing special.  However, I have this hilarious Boston video set to the song that cracks me up.  I’ll see if I can find it and post it later, I’m on the huzband’s computer right now.

Yesterday I came home from work and decided to practice.  So I popped a dvd in, Guruji in Mauii in 2000.  He taught a big group in a gym there, I believe that was the last stop of his 2000 World Tour.  It’s basically Primary start to finish.  I know a lot of people practice with Sharath’s dvd, which I’ve tried, but it just doesn’t do it for me.  I like listening to Guruji’s voice do the count.  I did everything except the last two poses.  When I got to marichy a, I called the husband in to help me bind A and C (skipped B and D).  Then I made him do three navasanas with me.  Me: Ok, now do navasana with me .  Him: Oh, man, I hate this pose!  Me:  Everyone hates this pose (laughing).  After navasana, I decided to practice some bakasana instead of bhujapidasana, since I had help there with me.  So I had him sit crosslegged in front of me and put one of my yoga blankets in his lap (I’ve fallen onto his knees face first before, they are not soft!).  I got down there and hiked my knees into my armpits but I just couldn’t get liftoff.  Him: I could do that!  Me:  Asshole, I hate you (laughing).  Sure enough, he got up and did a very acceptable bakasana.  Grrrrr!  So he got in front of me again and held me up by my shoulders while I came forward.  Him: You need to get smaller!  Me:  I’m a big girl!  More laughing.  I finally did achieve a bit of liftoff but he was still bracing my shoulders.  I guess I’m not getting my face low enough?  I don’t know, but it was fun to try and to have help.  After that I did my modified kurmasana and he helped me into a decent supta kurmasana.  I really wish I could get him to practice with me, I think I could practice at home more consistently if I had a little company.  Ah well.

This morning Rufus started limping.  It was hard to tell which leg was giving him a problem.  We did a slow 15 minute walk.  When I got home and watched him again, it looks like he’s having a problem with both of his back legs, the left more than the right.  He demonstrates all of the symptoms of luxating patella, I just didn’t realize til the limp started.  He has pretty much all of these:

General symptoms of Luxating Patella can be seen in the dog favoring the affected leg when he runs or walks, placing it down only after several steps. In addition, Pugs affected by it may also have difficulty sitting down and getting up, and run in a bunny hop style, lifting both legs up at the same time, and jetting them outward.

It is important to note that while Luxating Patella is a genetic issue found often in Pugs, it can also be brought to the forefront by excess weight.

I feel so incredibly guilty that I didn’t take his weight problem more seriously.    Tomorrow morning we will go to the vet so he can get it checked out, plus get his anal glands expressed (FUN!), have the vet look at his chronically dirty ear (which I’m convinved is caused by mild allergies) and both boys can get their kennel cough shots so they can go to doggie day care one day over Labor Day weekend.  Poor Woooooofus!

Rufus using one of his ‘babies’ as a pillow.

Work has been freaking nutty.  Our old anti-spam provider, MessageLabs, has been holding particular messages hostage all week.  Finally got it resolved today after having my boss’s boss wire them $23k.  Yikes.  What a nightmare!

Manners

First up on the iPod shuffle setting this morning, Eminem, Cleaning Out My Closet.  What a dark dark song.  But I like it!  Love Eminem.  Shortly after that was The Alan Parsons Project, Eye In The Sky.  Good songs for an unseasonably cool, dreary day here on the Evil Island.

When the dear husband got home last night with the children, he shared a brief story with me.  Apparently the children let a hackysack (two words?  one word?) explode all over their mother’s clean house.  Now, I totally get the frustration she must feel.  When the children are at our house, it’s NEVER clean.  I’m constantly reminding….pick up your wet towel, don’t touch the sliding glass windows, don’t touch the walls, stop standing in front of the open refrigerator door, wash your hands.  But, that’s part of having children.  It’s one of the reasons I don’t have children.  I like a CLEAN house.  And I don’t like repeating myself.  So, their mother proceeds to scream at them about the hackysack.  I know that everyone loses their temper but apparently there’s a lot of yelling that goes on in that house.  I’ve found that yelling isn’t all that helpful.  If you deliver your message in a calm but firm tone (and repeat it about a thousand times) eventually the message gets through.  And you get a lot more respect.  Apparently, the screaming about the hackysack led to a fit about T’s table manners — not sure how that transition came about but I don’t pretend to understand the inner workings of this woman’s mind.  Now, let me tell you, T’s table manners are BAD.  I would rather eat with my sloppy, stinky pug at the table than with this young man.  He basically puts his face about two inches from his plate and shovels food into his mouth, sometimes with the fork, sometimes just with his hands.  About 70% of it gets into his mouth and the rest ends up either on the table, the chair or the floor.  I’ve made a few comments about it but dear husband doesn’t think it’s that important (charming).  Well, apparently now it’s important so on top of trying to get them to act decently in the house (don’t wrestle, don’t treat the furniture like a jungle gym, don’t throw or bounce balls in the house) we now have to teach them table manners.  How nice that she gets to take her son on Sunday to get a pair of custom sneakers made at the Nike store in the City while we teach him table manners.

YAWN, boring!

No yoga.  DH needs to get a job so I can afford to take yoga classes again!

I’m back

I decided I needed an outlet so I’m bringing the blog back.  It’ll be less about ashtanga (mostly because I’m not really practicing) and more about my [YAWN] day to day drivel.  It’s possible I’ll go private at some point so I can rant about whatever I want to.  We’ll see how it goes.

Work is super nutty.  We’re closing in on the end of the review year so everyone is scrambling to get their objectives finished.  Everyone except me because, um, I’ve been doing mine all year!

Practice is crappy right now.  I got up at about 5:50 (because the phone rang, apparently I’m on call) and practiced for about half an hour.  Somehow I got derailed at UHP.  Did some seated poses and attempted two backbends.  Um, yeah.  They weren’t that bad, just a little stiff and my wrists hurt.  I really really wish I enjoyed practicing alone more but I just don’t!  It’s NOT fun.

Hopefully I’ll have more interesting stuff to post about in the near future.

Sad day

It appears that Guruji has passed away.   I am grateful to have spent a tiny amount of time in his presence and I know he will be very much missed.

Back Home

Here is my new favorite movie star:

Zachary Quinto as Young Spock

I always liked him as Sylar in Heroes but now I loooooove him as Spock.

And here is my new favorite ‘real-life’ hottie:

Mark Russinovich

I’m not going to expain who that is though, you’ll just have to look him up.

The conference was, well, boring.  Very informative but really really boring, mostly because I was there all day every day by myself. 

Practiced four days though, and that was all good.  Lots of backbeding help, and some enlightenment on Marichy A.  I suspected that I was over-using my hamstrings to forward bend but I don’t think I realized how much.  Back to the drawing board on the forward bends for now.

Hollywood Nights

Riding back to the West side from downtown, one of my favorite songs ever came on my very favorite radio station – Hollywood Nights/Bob Seger

And those Hollywood nights
In those hollywood hills
It was looking so right
It was giving him chills
In those big city nights
In those high rolling hills
Above all the lights
With a passion that kills

Every time I come back here I think perhaps the veneer will have worn off.  Perhaps it’s not as good as I remember it to be.  Maybe I’m just fooling myself that I was truly happy here.  And then I arrive.  It’s good to be home.

Practice today was lovely.  I was given some nice backbending homework (homework that probably won’t go over well in my new teacher’s room but I can certainly do at home) to strengthen the legs.  Right now when I backbend it feels like about 80% of my weight is resting in my arms.  Now that I’ve figured how to come up properly (well, almost, I still duck my feet out just a bit) and my shoulders and armpits have opened up enough that it at least feels like I’m stacking up the arms on the bones, it’s time to shift some weight to the legs.  Fun.

After practice I met Owl for a quick breakfast.  She’s so vivacious, that’s the perfect word for her.  Very exciting changes going on in her life, I’m excited for her and The Editor.  When I came out of the restaurant I realized that what I thought was a metered space on the street was actually a fire hydrant location!  How did I not see that!  Even better, no ticket.  Amazing.

Tomorrow begins the ridiculous geek-fest downtown.

Life changes

THIS is what I want to do.  I want to address these kinds of things.  Lately I’ve been feeling an unbelievable pull towards a career that involves animals.  But what to do?  The real problem is that I’m really attached to my current paycheck level.  I’m trying not to be crass, but there it is.  I’m not rolling in cash by any means but I’ve gotten used to a certain lifestyle.  Bonuses, increases every year.  The thought of turning away from all that is very very scary.  So, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what it would take to extricate myself from this career.  Two days ago I had a mini-meltdown at my desk (which I managed to contain) when it hit me that this is the MOST ridiculous job EVER.  ALL I’M DOING IS HELPING SOMEONE ELSE MAKE MORE MONEY.  WTF is that??????

I need some anatomy help.  I’ve been experiencing some nasty pain in the thoracic area ever since I started working with my trainer in January.  The pain is almost exclusively once I go to bed (and no, not just my bed, any bed; we have three beds in the house and I’ve tried them all).  When I signed up with him I told him I wanted to focus on core strength.  We do some abdominal work but also a lot of work on the back as well as glutes.  It seems he’s not happy with my posture (and really, no one ever is!).  I have a nasty habit of raising my shoulders toward my ears, which yoga teachers have been harping on for years with me.  He harps on it as well.  As I started doing some research today as to what muscles are back there, what I might be doing wrong, etc.  I came across this article.  It seems that all of my trouble/weak spots might be causing this all at once.  Typical of my body, I try to work on one area to strengthen it and another one complains.  I probably should just break down and try acupuncture but I haven’t had the time.  I guess when I get back from LA.

This rain needs to end.  My garden looks like a mushroom farm.

Back in the Saddle? Maybe not

I took my first mysore class in months yesterday.  I’m trying to remember the last time I went to a mysore class.  Probably when I was in LA in March, that doesn’t count.  Once Greg left YS, I was angry and sad and, well, done.  I figured it was home practice or no practice.  I’m tired of having a new teacher every year.  I’m tired of having people re-learn how to deal with my quirky body.  I’m tired of explaining that, yes, I know I can’t do any of the marichyasanas unassisted or bhujipidasana but my previous teachers had me do all of Primary anyway.  So, at the urging of Anna, I decided I’d give her new (old) teacher a try.  This is a teacher I had met before briefly maybe three years ago.  I was hideously injured (strained my lower back muscling myself into UD) so at the time I just did my half-primary in her room with minimal adjustments.  I’m sure she doesn’t remember me. 

So, I was tapped at Marichyasana C yesterday, which is what I figured would happen.  Which I was fine with, until I wasn’t.  The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me.  I guess I just don’t understand the whole ’stop a student at x pose even though you don’t know their practice and have no idea WHY they can’t do x pose’.  It’s frustratingto not be able to do *my* practice.  But then again, I practice mostly at home or in the gym group exercise room so does it really matter that on Sundays I’ll be going to Marichyasana C?  In the grand scheme of things, not really.  On the positive side, it was nice to practice with PEOPLE again, especially such a small class (with NO DRAMA).  We all got a lot of attention.  This particular teacher has the most amazing hands I’ve ever experienced.  And she’s so darned sweet, how can you not love her?  So I’ll be going back tomorrow morning and then when I get back from LA (where I’ll be allowed to do my entire practice, thank heavens).

In other news, the job is, well, a job.  I’m trying to learn to not let it define me but it’s awfully hard.

LA on Saturday, something to look forward to.

One month later…..

I’m typing this 0n BF’s mini-computer so it will be brief.

I guess I haven’t had much to say lately.  I’ve been considering a career change for a while.  I always wished that I had studied to be a veterinarian.    Everyone always said I should have been one.   I never thought I could deal with the gore.  Plus I’m not one for science (although I did enjoy biology enough to take biology I and II for majors in undergrad).  Lately the job has been, well, less than fulfilling.  The only good thing about the job is that the money is really good.  And lately that hasn’t been enough.  Ugh, hopefully I’m just PMSing because I certainly don’t have $100k+ to spend on ANOTHER education.  BAH.  Plus, there are only 18 veterinary schools in the US and Canada.  Seriously???????  The least expensive choice is Cornell in Ithaca, because I’m a NY resident, so it’s only 25k a year.  My ideal choice would be Western in Pomona, just outside LA.  But that’s more like 45k a year.  There’s also UC Davis but that’s outside Sacramento.  Ick.  But probably better than Ithaca…..can you say WINTER?????????

Practice…….more regular the last couple of weeks.  The vacation in LA was good for that.  I took my favorite Saturday vinyasa class at Maha, it totally kicked my ass.  I have rediscovered my backbends, although they are still difficult through the lats.  I’m thinking about getting acupuncture for the pain, its keeping me up at night.

The dogs are with their daddy and I miss them…..even though they are a pain in the arse.

God I hope this is PMS……

Pictures and an update

I practiced yesterday.  It was nice until the dogs decided to get into the act:

 

Little Buddha helping Mommy in Downward Dog

Nice butt, Rufus.

This past weekend we went to the top of the Empire State Building with the kids:

Hazy gray day

Why BF can’t seem to remember to take his sunglasses off when the camera is pointed at him I’ll never know.  And since this picture of the children doesn’t really do them justice:

T and Z at the South Street Seaport

We ALMOST got Z to smile.  What’s funny is that this kid is always laughing and giggling but point a camera at him and forget it.

Nothing new on the asana front to report.  My backbends are still missing in action.  I keep trying and I keep coming up halfway and getting stuck.  I’m going to LA in a couple of weeks, hopefully my teacher there can help me out.