Backbends+Angry Birds, Safety First, More Food!

I. DID. IT!!!!

Stood up from a backbend from the floor. Yes, You Sucker! FINALLY!

Did 2 sets of 3 backbends walking hands in closer every time, and on the next backbend when I finally walked the hands closer still, suddenly something clicked in my legs in a "OH! I kinda remember this now!" sort of way and I was able to hurl myself up to standing on the inhale. I don't think Sharath or Saraswati saw me, but who cares?! I probably had an idiotic grin on my face anyway.

Every body is built differently and what works for me is probably different from anyone else, but definitely walking the hands in as close to the feet as possible was what made it click for me today. DUH. My thighs tend to push upwards more whenever I walk the hands in, automatically activating them more, giving the grounding I need. And then it happened. And immediately after that, guess what my next thought was? ..."Crap. Now I'm gonna have to 'rinse and repeat' and make sure I do it again tomorrow." HAHAHAHA! :)

After this I went straight into dropbacks without hanging back halfway like I usually do to "open up" the back first. I guess doing lots of backbends on the floor is the equivalent of this and I felt open enough to dropback today without faffing. And dropbacks and standing back up from them were great again today! Nobody was standing around watching and pressuring me again, so that definitely helped too.

Other things that helped me finally stand up from that blasted backbend from the floor:

1. Angry Birds. Yes, Angry Birds the game.
I'm a little obsessed with this game where you have to catapult the angry birds onto pigs that have stolen the birds' eggs (yes, seriously. I play this game). Yesterday, when my friend Nass told me I had to think of moving UPWARDS rather than only FORWARDS, I thought of the catapulting action in Angry Birds. HAHAHA! I'm a nerd. Watching other people practice while sitting out in the foyer for my turn to start also helped me visualize this spring-coil action needed to move your centre of gravity to propel you up and over (hence for me, moving the hands in as tight and close as possible to the feet helped this).


2. Dreaming of it
Seriously. I woke up at 3am today and couldn't fall asleep again. So I started visualizing doing backbends from the floor and finally standing up from them. At some point I must have drifted off to sleep.

3. So embarrassed to admit this, but before practice today, I dedicated my practice to: the act of standing up from a backbend on the floor. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! I am a complete and utter nerd. I was very aware that I wasn't grasping and willing it to happen, I just dedicated it to the act of standing up itself. Didn't matter if I did it today or not nor ever.

So... I suppose I have been kinda sorta obsessing over this. HA. So then what happens now? ...Absolutely NOTHING. I wake up and do it all over again tomorrow. :)

A couple days ago, Karen, Jill and I went to Rashinkar's, the tailor, in town (this was my third trip there in the 4 weeks I've been here now. I end up buying or making something there every time I go. I need to STOP GOING THERE!!!) I tagged along with the girls coz they were looking for Mysore rugs, and I was just interested in going round the corner to Dasaprakash after that for lunch (it's always about the food. Heh.)

Rashinkar's is currently going through renovations and every time I've been there, something looks different about it, or it's in a different state of... er... disrepair. This trip was hands down the winner. They had pretty much removed part of the floor of the second floor, as well as the wall of the stairwell. So in order to reach the section where the Mysore rugs were kept, the poor girls had to walk via a shaky, loose wooden board. I think this was actually a little board holding the lighting electricals. It was never built as a gangplank to get from one side to the other!

Someone remarked... "Er... Is it safe?" To which came the reply "It is safe, Madam".




I had no need for a Mysore rug, so no way in hell was I gonna risk life and limb to get over to the side! I climbed up the stairwell (the one with no wall around it anymore), and it had poky wire-mesh and crumbling construction bits sticking out of it. Here are more photos taken from Karen's FB page, used with permission:


View from the other side where the rugs are. I was pretty much standing where this lady is, giving them my opinion on which rug colours were prettier. HAHAHA!


The big stash of Mysore rugs:


Later, we had another round of Thali at Dasaprakash. :)



Other food porn shots from dinner last night... Coconut Dosa at Greenleaf (only on Tuesdays!) This baby is laced with coconut and other good stuff and is greasy-HEAVY. (For the first time, I couldn't finish my dinner!)


Alice is the Queen of Vanilla Ice-cream. This is probably the prettiest sundae I've seen so far.


I'm done with all my Sanskrit classes! So this afternoon I can make another trip out with the group to see the orphans. It's nice not to have anything heavy to do today (like HOMEWORK). HAHA!

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