Funky Foot Fashion

I hobbled my way to the Fysio yesterday (that's the Dutch spelling of "Physio". Cute!) and she gave me an ultrasound on my foot (which helps er... break down all the swelling that's going on there. I think.) And then she also taped up my foot.

I love that it's not the ugly beige tape Fysios usually use. Apparently they come in all colours too, but she ran out of PINK. :)


(Please don't look at the state of my pedicure coz i really need one!)

It actually hurts more on the other side, where the arch of the foot is. But from this angle you can see the funky fan pattern going on top of my foot (to "help circulation" apparently).

She was going on about how there are up to 5 levels of how you can hurt your tendons/ ligaments (#5 being a proper tear), and I'm probably at a level 1. Seeing as how I can kinda walk around properly today and start to put a wee bit more pressure on the foot (even though I really shouldn't be), I would have to agree. SO GLAD IT'S NOT ANYTHING MORE SERIOUS!!

I had every intention of getting onto my mat this morning and just doing some seated postures. But coz I've been sleeping with my foot elevated on a pillow, it gets really uncomfortable and I wake up with a stiff/ cold/ sore foot and leg. And completely in no mood/ state for anything physical. Oh no. I hope I don't start to fall off the practice wagon again so easily.

I'm halfway between "Do I need to rest or am I just being lazy". Sometimes it's hard to tell. As you can probably tell by now, I'm an "ALL OR NOTHING!" kinda person. So even by getting on the mat, I would need to consciously hold back my ego and stop pushing myself to GO GO GO!!

Someone suggested instead of doing full Suryas, I should rather warm up by doing cat/ cow/ child stretches then go straight to the seated asanas. Sounds really wussy, but also very wise given my foot situation.

So damn frustrating. I obviously need to SLOW DOWN and LEARN PATIENCE. Practice, practice... and STILL not coming. HAHAHA.

Hello Injury & Bye Bye Summer

2 days ago, I posted off my application form to KPJAYI. AGAIN! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Let's hope this time around I finally get to go. The office has approved 1 month of leave. OK, so it's not the 2 months that I originally intended to go for but hey... I'll take what I can get!

In my excitement at the post office, I tripped over a step and twisted my foot. Good thing I didn't break or snap anything, I just pulled/ sprained a muscle in a MAJOR way. I spent all of yesterday at home because I couldn't walk. I thought my foot looked OK, but when I compared the left foot to the right foot, it looked like I had leftfootelephantitis. To make matters worse, because I'm bikeless, I couldn't cycle to the doctor or physio either... And there's no way I could have WALKED there. (And NO! I refuse to believe this is a bad omen for my intended trip to Mysore!!)

I was forced to stay home with my leg propped up in bed, reading Guruji. HAHAHA! So... It's not like I was complaining AT ALL. :)

The foot's much better today, I just can't apply too much pressure on it so I'm walking around with a limp. Good thing it's a Moon Day so there's no practice today. I couldn't manage any standing sequences yesterday. Tried some seated poses but my left foot couldn't bend beyond a certain point and it got awkward and painful. Jumpbacks? Forget about it! So I figured "Sod it. It's time to rest."

On Tuesday, the day I busted my foot, it was the official last day of Summer (although technically, Summer was pretty much gone when August came around in Amsterdam...) So a workmate decided to take his boat out for ONE LAST boat ride to say "Bye Bye Summer!" He also had fake moustaches on board, so we spent the whole ride blowing furry kisses to our cameras. (Incidentally, EVERYONE on board was smoking cigarettes, but I'm pleased to say I didn't reach for one. It also didn't feel like such a big deal. So... yes, my nicotine detox is still ongoing!) (For my recent struggle with picking up smoking AGAIN, see Point #6 here)










Spot the real moustache.


It was a beautiful day, clear skies and not too cold.


And then we went down one of the canals right in the middle of the Red Light District. There were girls in their knickers in the store windows. But I still didn't have the guts to take photos of them even though we were on a boat and could technically make a run for it if they came out hissing and spitting at us. It was slow-moving traffic down this canal coz there were lots of other tourist boats gawking and rubber-necking too.


Entrance to a sex show (Yes, those are naked ladies on the walls).


Yes, it's the Erotic Museum.


More pictures of naked people on the walls (another sex show? Whore house? Who knows? ...Who cares?! It looks great!)


We passed a "floating" Chinese restaurant (You can see it's not really floating at all).


And the beautiful new library. It made me think of Arturo coz I'm sure he'd appreciate this lovely design.


The End.

An Observation From a Stuck Shoulder

I think I discovered why my Supta Kurmasana bind has been lost in the Matrix. Everything else in my practice has come back in full force now that I'm back to a regular practice, but not the damn Supta K bind. OK, maybe I'm still not back to grabbing my wrists yet in Mari D, just a hand-bind only. But by golly, even Laghuvajrasana, that hateful pose... is starting to make a bit more sense and is becoming a more "quiet" pose (ie: No voices in my head screaming out "I FUCKING HATE YOU, LAGHU!" ...Or rather, the voices are probably still there, but I've just learned how to tune them out and get on with it.)

So - what the heck is going on with Supta Kurmasana?

The past couple of days, I've noticed that as I'm entering the Supta version from Kurmasana, bending the legs and scooping the shoulders under as much as I can before swinging the hands behind my back... I noticed that my left shoulder couldn't get past a certain point as much as my right shoulder could. My right hand could swing behind, past my spine... And logically, if I could do the same with my left hand too - then both hands should meet like they used to. Right?

Problem is - My left hand hasn't been able to swing past the midway mark of my spine like it used to. My shoulder just felt "stuck".

I just thought "It's one of those days. My body hasn't learnt to open up to where it used to be".

Then yesterday, I went to the physio to get more dry-needling done in my shoulders. A month away in London, lugging my computer around town and hunching over the laptop in post-production suites and audio studios and not sitting at a proper desk had taken its toll. I could feel those chronic trigger points in my shoulders start to act up again.

Good thing I went! The entire muscle down by my left scapula was a solid rock. The Physio stuck needles into those trigger points and it was such a relief to feel the tension melt away!

I hadn't even made that connection between my shoulder and Supta Kurmasana until today's practice. The moment I scooped my left shoulder under my leg to get into the Supta variation, it felt like there was loads more movement going on in that shoulder. Even though it still felt a bit raw and bruised from yesterday's needling, I could already feel a bit more movement going on there. And my left hand was able to climb a little higher up my back, like it used to.

I'm probably still nowhere close to where my hands should be in order to get a hand-bind yet, but I can already feel the difference.


(Haha, OK so Dwi Pada Sirsasana isn't quite Supta Kurmasana but this pic made me laugh!)

I guess there isn't a point to today's post. It's just an observation in muscle mechanics. Maybe now I can give into the frustration with this asana and stop wondering "Where the hell did you go to?!"

{UPDATE}: In bitching about everything that WASN'T there in my practice today, I forgot to mention one thing that happened today THAT HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!!! I got my heels to lift in Kurmasana. I mean... that's pretty big news innit. I was reading up all of my Ashtanga books, trying to get tips on the Supta K bind, when I realized the reason why I was always lifting my bum instead of my heels in Kurmasana is coz my hands were too far back. Gregor Maehle says your hands need to be in line with your shoulders in Kurmasana. DOH! So I tried it today, pointed my toes... And Hey Presto! Like magic, my heels lifted. :) :) :)

PS. I am loving practicing at home in my new apartment. Hard wood floors (YAY! No yucky carpet!), an EVEN floor, and more space to move around. It makes such a big difference in motivating yourself out of bed onto the frigging cold mat at 6am. (I still have no bike yet and can't get to a shala in the morning).

PPS. The other thing I'm loving about self-practice at home: Not having to deal with OTHER PEOPLE'S yucky flaky mat bits and hair bits getting all over me. Everyone should just buy a Manduka mat which never flakes, in an effort to be considerate to your neighbour. Or... just practice at home if you have a flaky mat. :)

My Latest Work

So the spot that I was hired to produce 7 months ago is finally live. It broke all over the world this past weekend so I can finally share it here. I can't believe we're finally done!!

If we're FB friends, then apologies if this is stale news to you coz EA posted a sneak preview of it there last week. :)





And finally, here's the actual spot. Enjoy! (You can find the US version on youtube too).

RIP Roxanne

PANTS!!! I came back to Amsterdam after being in London for a month and... MY BIKE GOT STOLEN!!!! Roxanne... she's GONE!!

I had a lock on the back tyre, a chain on the front tyre, it was chained to a post that was cemented to the ground... And after a month of being away, not only was the bike gone, the WHOLE POST was gone too! They'd changed the "Construction Here" sign to a regular short post. With no bike in sight.

So I called the Fietsdepot, aka Bike Depot... and they couldn't find a bike matching my description around my neighbourhood. Determined and on a mission, I made the trek out there to Butthole, Arse End of Nowhere - taking the tram then switching over to a bus. I mean... the fact that there were ELECTRIC WINDMILLS out there shows you how Butthole-Nowhere this place is.

I have more stunning pictures of the area, but since I have no internet connection at home (STILL!), I'm writing this post from the office and you'll just have to wait for the photo uploads.

The Fietsdepot is a pretty amazing sight. A graveyard of bicycles.


They still couldn't find any bike matching my description in their system, but let me walk through their graveyard of bikes. Still no luck. I recognized a tomato-red bike with a Heinz logo sticker on it from around my neighbourhood though. Too bad I don't know its owner to let them know it's there.

Soooooo... £&$^%(@*&)£%(&)(@£**!_$&£!_(!@*!)£(*@)($&@*£)@£*$&£$(£*&$

Flipping annoying. In the spirit of Joyful Surrender and pratising non-attachment to material things... I made my way over to the dude who customized Roxanne straight after this excursion. I mean... I need a bike to get around, right. But... I think I'm still in shock. I have no idea what other bike I want now. In the meantime, I'm just gonna rent one of his old crusted bikes until I decide.

On second thoughts... No wonder people don't give a shit about their bikes here and have crappy rides. I guess they've had them stolen too often to care what their bikes look like!

However, I am a product of marketing and buy into the bullshit spiel that my ride is an extension of my personality (knowing full well that it's bullshit marketing hype. But hello? I work in advertising). So unfortunately, I can't just ride a crappy, crusted bike. It seems lame to re-do another bike that looks exactly the same as the previous one though.

Ideas? Suggestions? ...I'm thinking of going all white. White frame with white tyres. But... I'm not really in the right frame of mind to think about this now. Hrmph.
Maybe I should get this horse bike, from this original post here.


PS. Another victim of this job we've been on is my workmate. He came home to Waterworld 2 and 3. Part 2 was his upstairs neighbour's pipe had burst and was dripping into his living room. His ceiling beam has rotted through. Part 3 was his boat was submerged into the canal from all the rain Amsterdam has had while we were away. ARGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

PPS. The ONE good thing that happened this morning was I had my very first practice in my "new" apartment. "New" only because I've technically moved in for a month now, but I've only physically been in it for 3 days before we were off to London for a month. It was soooooooooo nice to have a level hard wood floor to practice on, makes it a nice change from Beige Heaven's slanted floor. Just full Primary today to christen my living room, and also to ground me from all that traveling and work kerfuffle.

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda

Today would have been the day I'd be leaving Cape Town for Mysore, to start a 2-month practice at KPJAYI. Instead, I'm in London, sat in a dark telecine room grading pictures, checking visual effects and getting through a multitude of revisions to be done before we deliver this TV commercial on Sunday. This spot has been 6 months in the making, the longest I have ever worked on ONE commercial.

What a difference a few months makes...

Yup, in case you forgot or are new around here... When my freelance gig in Amsterdam became a full-time job offer, part of the job terms was to continue working through the rest of the year. I wasn't able to take a fluffy 2 months off work to go to Mysore for Ashtanga and then start the full-time job contract in November as I'd requested (oh yeah, I lost a boyfriend along the way too.) BAH HUMBUG!!

HA.

It's all good, I have zero complaints here. I saw a brilliant opportunity and jumped for it. Mysore will always be there for me (unless commercialization starts to eat its way through it before I get there, just reading about the way things are panning out in the Ashtanga world since Guruji's passing. Hrmph.)

Still... even though this was a conscious decision I made, I can't help but feel a little bummed out today. :(

To top it all off, while I'm coasting through the rest of my practice, my Supta Kurmasana bind is STILL not back. What the hell is going on?! I feel like a chubby lump in the pose - Why can't my hands find each other again? Did my arms become shorter? Do I have a bigger belly roll in the way?

...So fucking frustrating.

Fucking Friday. Working through another weekend this week again.

SO. OVER. THIS.