My abs were on fire when I woke up this morning! So were my shoulders! With all the grace of a beer bottle rolling off the table, I fell out of bed. Great start to the day....
The Shala does not have a Friday morning Mysore class (what a name!), so I was on my own for today's practice. Even though no one would know, I did my sequence: 10 Sun Salutations, the 3 closing moves, then rest. The rest is called Savasana or Shavasana, (aka corpse pose), and I felt half-dead as I lay there. After 5 minutes or so, I was ready to live again.
Mysore classes are named for the city of Mysore, India, home of Ashtanga yoga. When I first heard the name, cold sores and oozing wounds came to mind. (I was too ignorant to have heard of, much less visited, the city in India.) Now I think of it as the end product of my practice, as in My, am I sore. Or My sorest spot is my abs.
A Mysore class is not teacher-lead, although an instructor is present. It is self-lead, with each person going through the Ashtanga poses until he or she reaches his/her end point. My end point is the Sun Salutations. The instructor guides and corrects each student as necessary, and when the student is ready, teaches him/her a new pose. In Ashtanga, each pose builds upon the previous ones. The sequence is always the same, it's the stopping point that varies from person to person. An advanced practice can take hours to complete. Mine takes 40 minutes, including pauses for self pep-talks.
Today I concentrated on keeping my shoulders away from my ears. I was moderately successful. However I realized my forward bend (palms on floor beside feet, head touching knees) is nowhere close to right. Sigh. Darn the belly fluff and tight leg muscles!
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