Why is Sharath never there when you want him to be.

....would have got my gold star and everything.

Much better 2nd this morning. If you cought my last two posts on getting back into 2nd series, you would have seen my practice described as being hit by a truck ( sunday) and car crash Ashtanga (yesterday). I'd lost two kilo during practice the first day just over a kilo the second,  decided to see if I could will myself to sweat less this morning.

How do you will yourself to sweat less, is that even possible?

Of course I could have turned the heat down a few degrees but that would have felt like cheating, same with taking it slower and taking rest breaks.

I thought about focusing on the breath more but we tend to do that anyway and besides, my breathing hasn't been that bad the last couple of days. Decided to go with focusing on my heartbeat and trying to keep it steady.

Ramaswami writes in The complete book of Vinyasa Yoga

'In contrast to aerobic exercise (which itself has benefits), neither the breathing rate nor the heart rate should increase while practicing yoga.' pxviii

In Vinyasa Krama, if your breathing or heart rate goes up you take a mini savasana. I didn't want to break up my practice this morning but I hoped that by focusing on my heartbeat throughout I could perhaps keep it steadier. My theory was that if I could keep the heartbeat more regular, and the breath steady I would sweat less which should keep me stronger for the second half of practice which would, in turn, help to keep the heart rate down.

Does anyone talk about focusing on the heartbeat during practice, whether in Ashtanga, Yoga in general or indeed any sports, running say? I know sporty types often have those heart rate monitors on their arms while training, so they're keeping an eye on it but do they make their heart their mental drishti?

I do it in pranayama sometimes, I might focus on the breath, sometimes between my eyebrows, refuse to say third eye, doh, said it, or I focus on my heart, after a while you can hear/feel it quite distinctly. It's curious but just watching the heart seems to steady it, Vipassana trick I guess.

So throughout practice I kept coming back to the heart and everything else just seemed to take care of itself. Nice, nice practice, possibly my best 2nd ever. Kapo wasn't so deep (mid foot), Bakasana not as floaty and still a squished Kanadavasana but overall, nice, composed practice. A week of those in a row and I'd be happy.

Stats.
90 minutes  Sury to laying down in savasana,
Weight  : Before 77.0  After 76.3

A note on bandhas. Seemed to use them well this morning, I always tend to have them ticking over, engaging them more strongly here and there but today I used them in co-ordination with my heart focus. At any point where I felt I would use more energy, more strength which might result in the heart beating faster I engaged the moola bandha more strongly, the difference seemed clearer somehow with this focus. Any lift started in moola bandha rather than in my arms, any stretch began the same way. That lift in Eka pada sisrasana where you bring your knee up to your nose, engaged the bandha and didn't feel it in the slightest in my arms, felt effortless so my heart stayed steady. Same with the Vatyanasana, stretching up higher and higher like a plant on crack, bandhas, all bandhas.

And of course sailing through practice in this way led much more nicely into my pranayama and meditation. Win Win.

Instead of feeling like this after practice

I felt like this. Oh yeah, who's bad.










Of course tomorrow will no doubt put me back in my place.