Openings and what to do with them Plus Morning stiffness

Trying to explain an 'Opening' to ones workmates who don't practice yoga is...... tricky.

Workmate 1 : "Why are you hobbling"
Me: " I had an opening"
Workmate 2 "What's an opening?"
Me: "It's when in your practice, something shifts in your body allowing you to get deeper into the posture"
Workmate 3 "Shifts?"
Me: Yeah, "In  my case, this morning I was in badha konasana, where my hips are open like a butterfly so my feet are together my knees on the mat then i started to turn my legs inside out and I felt something like my leg joint popping out of the hip socket....that kind of thing".
Workmate 1 "You dislocated your hip?"
Me "No, I experienced an opening?"
Workmate 3 " Sorry, I thought yoga was supposed to be good for you"
Me : "(hobbling off) it is, never felt better".

OK I'm not convinced either. So badha konasana week before last, knees to the mat, nice and comfortable, then as is my habit a half serious attempt at kandasana, of bringing my feet up towards my belly.... It felt good my knees coming further around and down. So I decided on another go and then felt something in my right hip joint, felt as if the ball was coming out of the socket. Hmm that can't be good, backed off did gomukhasana which I kind of use as a counterpose. Everything seemed to be moving OK but my hip felt loose...less connected, open..... Ahhh an opening thinks I, is this what everybody is going on about.

My hip felt a little uncomfortable afterwards, not exactly sore but I was cautious about putting weight on it so was hobbling a bit thus the conversation at work that morning.

Now I'm not convinced about openings, when your read about the tearing and wrenching of joints and ligaments in the back and hip and shoulders ( in the Guruji book for instance) I, like my workmates, tend to think it's just a tearing and wrenching of hips and ligaments.

But what if this was an opening. Now what? What does one do. Jump straight back in there and give the posture another go? If you leave it to settle down for a couple of days does the opening close back up again?

I went for the later option and took it easy in my practice for a few days, avoided hip openers for a week.  This week I'm back to regular practice and my badha konasana open like a well read passage in a cheap paperback. Hip feels fine, perhaps a little more open, can't decide. perhaps it's time to give kandasana another try and see.

Stiffness in the mornings.

My back has been playing up in the mornings, really stiff and painful, practice just no fun. It's getting colder, old injury ( twenty years odd)  playing up, tends to do that in the colder weather. Left knee is stiff too, another old injury.

So a new approach to practice.

I'm back practicing full Ashtanga Primary in the evening as soon as I get in from work, want to generate as much heat as possible, then the back is fine. So deep forward bends, shoulders on the mat in Kurmasana and a nice tight dwi pada entry to Supta Kumasana, long, deep paschi, nailing all the march wrist binds and no problem with my drop backs.

Practice a pleasure again.

In the mornings I'm getting up 5:30 same as usual, a nice tadasana and Vinyasa Karma core postures, gentle paschi with a tatakamudra warm up, some of the spinal postures from Ramaswami's newsletter before Shoulderstand and headstand. Plus I'm slipping in whatever subroutine I'm writing on that day (unless it's a tough one then I'll slip it into the evenings primary). A shorter asana practice, about an hour.

After practice a longer Pranayama session , half an hour and more time for Meditation, 40 minutes ( japa mantra followed by Vipassana ).