Rob - Fear Not Blogosphere - I'm Still Here! - Day 16 - Mysore

Hello World! I will confess that I have been neglecting this blog for the past week or so, but fear not! My practice has remained...well...for the most part. Last Thursday I was busy from 4:30am to 9:30pm and was unable to practice. I figure this is a worthy excuse so rather than beat myself up I just hit the mat the next morning. I've skipped that day on my day counter for accuracies sake.

I don't think it will be of benefit to backlog the days so long after the fact so I'll just pick up again with today. A quick aside though. It's been over two weeks! Holy cow! (I don't normally use this expression but somehow it seems a bit yogic, yes?) I'm definitely feeling the benefits of consistency each day in my mind, body and spirit. I have more energy and more equanimity with what the world tosses at me. This is really important since I've just started a new full-time, much higher stress job (the reason I haven't posted in so long). I'm really glad I've made this commitment at such a transitional time in my life. I'm finding it immensely helpful thus far.

I made it to Mysore practice this morning feeling more limber than ever. As I've dove into my practice I can feel the opening in my body, even if it does come with some soreness and the occasional tiredness. Today as I was jumping though and around I felt really light and graceful. I'm also noticing that I am aware of more parts of my body than I used to be. For example in utthita hasta padangusthasana I no longer focus on the stretch in the extended leg but instead focus on the grounded leg. It feels almost as if my leg is attached directly into the floor. Pretty cool stuff if you ask me!

This journey is already about 5% underway and already I'm feeling amazing effects in my practice and life. Lord only knows where I'll be when I reach 100%. Also, starting next weekend I'll be throwing a little gasoline on the fires of my practice. I'm starting a 200 Hour YogaWorks Teacher Training with Natasha Rizopoulos. Needless to say this will definitely make the experiment more interesting!

Also, I found this awesome article on Huffington Post about the history of Asana. It's likely to be a bit of an eye opener for some of the yoga snobs out there:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sadie-nardini/your-yoga-poses-arent-500_b_272821.html

Namaste, Om Shanti, Etc.!