Furry Wombat

Practice this morning was good.  Kara was teaching today (it’s Wed), and I got an adjustment in prasarita padottanasana C.  I’ve been worried about this adjustment for a while b/c the AC joint in my left shoulder has been tender for quite a while.  I’ve also been convinced that my hands must be more than a foot off the ground because my shoulders are tighter (I used to be easily adjusted to hands on ground).  Well!  The adjustment helped.  I didn’t fight it or even try too hard to make my shoulders do the “right thing” (more on this in a minute), and, lo and behold, my hands touched the ground.  Now, some of weight had come out of my feet, but still!  I was surprised.  And no ill effects from the adjustment — might even feel better.  Yay!  So, practice was pretty normal, backbends felt a bit better than Monday, the IT bands and psoas are going to take a while to loosen back up.   And, inspired by Patrick (who seems to have had a breakthrough reflected in his blog lately!), I did some ashtanga style pranayama today after uth pluthi.  He blogged about his recent intensive with Tim Miller and reminded me of a retreat I did in ’06 with Tim, where I learned the first few pranayama techniques.

So, what is the “right thing” to do with the shoulder in prasarita paddotanasana C and, perhaps, purvottanasana, the marichyasanas, and pashasana: (i) open and back, (ii) rolled forward and under, or (iii) some middle way (why do I know that (iii) is right?!).  To explain, in the standing inhale before folding forward for prasarita paddotanasana C, one could (i) pull the hands down toward the ground and roll the shoulders forward or (ii) pull the scapulae together in the back and open the chest by rolling the shoulders back.  I think I used to do more of (ii) but have been corrected to do more of (i).  Anyway, I was thinking (i) today during the adjustment and that seemed good.  However, adjustments in Mari C often seem to emphasize chest opening, so  tend to respond by rolling should up and back, rather than down and forward.

In other news, a dear friend called me today and told me she was getting a divorce.  20 years.  wow.  She and her now-ex both seem to be well, but it’s still sad.

I leave to see H tomorrow afternoon.