Day 11 : Friday Happiness

Date: October 11th
Day : 11

It's Friday and finally the end of week 2. After a very depressing yesterday, I vowed not to let things and people affect me negatively today and so I wok up with a smile on my face at 6 am and got ready for my hatha class. Partly because i wanted to start the day on a right note, and partly because the 8:30 am crowd would have surely soured my now improved mood. My class was with Daphne and it was really nice and I am so glad I made it. I realised this was my first Hatha class with Daphne, I have only attended her Yin, Flow and Hom. As usually she was awesome. And maybe it was in my head or maybe it actually did feel a little like flow. Maybe it was her voice! Somehow my back was not as flexible as before. But then, your body is different everyday. After a lovely day at work and some lovely coffee, the office was trialing a coffee shop called Papa Palhata. : it's beautiful by the way !

Ok back to the point now.

I was in two minds about going for the evening class. My cold was getting worse and the office AC was obviously not helping, but my body was not feeling tired, and so I wanted to go anyway. Plus that evening I was meeting friends and was definitely going to indulge in some unhealthy food, so might as well get the exercise. I usually try and catch the 4:30 PM on Fridays, because in Orchard Anton takes Ashtanga. And I don't think anyone takes Ashtanga as well as Anton does. Really. Or maybe my first couple of Ashtanga classes were with Anton, so I really grew to enjoy the series with him. I often wonder how doing the entire primary series will be. The one we do in class is of course modified to fit into 60 mins. They cut out a lot of asanas, but I still enjoy what remains. Someday I will try and do the whole series. I will write in detail about Ashtanga later, but in brief it was founded by K. Pattabhi Jois in Mysore. Two main core aspects of Ashtanga is the breath and the bandhas : we use a different breath called Ujjayi and activate the bandhas (muscle locking or contraction) I wonder how long the actual series is. Here's what it looks like:

(Image courtesy Yogi Jen of PeanutbutterRunner)

So, after all this Ashtanga talk, I didn't make it to the 4:30 class in Orchard. Had too much work to finish. I did make it to the 5pm Hom class at Raffles with June. My back was back to being good again and I could bend without a weird painful sensation. The one posture that I am working on, among the many others is Prasarita Padottasana : or the wide legged forward bend



It is a very common Forward fall and works on your back and the back of your legs and thigh. Awesome stretch. Here is a beautiful video that describes how to do it. Yesterday was really good and made some progress in this pose. But I still need to get consistent with this pose, there are days I can do it and there are days I absolutely can't. The alignment is very very important. As with everything else in yoga.

With that, my week comes to an end. I only plan to go to Yin classes on Saturday and Sunday. They are non-hot and so relaxing that you want it never to end! More about Yin tomorrow.

Namaste.