Slip and slide

In the winter, the balmy, sticky, cold, and rainy days make me scared to go to practice. I feel like an old hinge and a rusty bike chain all rolled into one creaky little package. But now the days are positively pleasant, and when the rain comes, I am surprised at how deep my practice becomes. Maybe it is because psychologically, I am putting more effort into the other stuff because I figure the wet weather will make me too stiff to bend anyway, and then all that work actually pays off and I become more open than if I would have tried for it. 

There are places in practice where the wet legs and arms are not to my benefit (or at least, they don't make things easier). Today in bhekasana, that stubborn right heel (which now touches the floor--a feat beyond belief in this ashtangi's mind) was on its way down when my hand slipped off my foot and my leg went flying (I think it did at least, hard to remember when I am just so focused ;)). In supta vajrasana, the feet can be slippery little buggers. Again, in bakasana, I have to actually work--imagine--to keep up rather than just resting on my arms, otherwise my legs slip right off. So I was rather surprised when I nailed bakasana B, slippage be damned! In yoga nidrasana and dwi pada sirsasana, the slippery shins helped me to get deep into the pose. But, then they quickly slipped away. In back bending, it was ankles being grabbed instead of calves. My hands would have slipped right down.

I kind of like it like this. It makes the practice feel so dynamic, so alive, like a music video with a bunch of scantily clad hotties gyrating in a sweaty room to the rhythm of the breath. I'm a bit of practice vampire, I'll admit, feeding off the energy of the room.

Toward the end of second series today (for me that is pincha, karan, mayurasana), I started having these weird thoughts. You know, like when you think of a word and you keep thinking of it until it doesn't make any sense. Well, same thing, but with the practice. In karandavasana mostly. I kept thinking about how "omg I am upside down" and wait "what do I do now?" and "f#$ I'm still upside down this is crazy" It was funny actually. 

In mayurasana, there are a couple of moments where my body is like "what is this?" and it searches through the database to figure out how to proceed and then it happens. I start to float. I was thinking about it yesterday and it reminds me a bit of those air locked jars of jam. Pop!