Last night at NeYoga was amazing, as always. I've been going there long enough that several people in the room I call friends. I was a little worried that I drank too much of the ashtanga yoga kool-aid when Sue adjusted me in baddha konasana, but she asked first and the knee felt okay, and I just kept thinking throughout the whole practice "Isvara Pranidhana," which I think of as surrender to a higher power although I don't necessarily call it God. Isvara pranidhana is one of the niyamas, or yogic precepts, from the yoga sutras. Together with the yamas they are kind of like the yogic ten commandments. So if the knee hurt, I didn't do it. If it felt okay I did.

This is a heated room and sweat just pours off you. Normally my clothes are, well, disgusting at the end of practice. Okay, they reek. They smell so very awfully bad that my husband won't come near me if I'm still wearing them. I've learned to bring dry clothes to change into after. But I swear, unless I really did have too much of that kool-aid, that my clothes and my skin, while wet, did not smell bad last night. In fact, what I could smell mostly is the tea that I've been drinking on the detox, with the fennel, cumin and coriander seeds. So for a long time I've been searching for the right detergent to wash my clothes on the outside, when perhaps what I really needed to consider was what I've been putting inside.

I'm very excited, I just agreed to give a workshop on Yoga for Athletes for the AIM triathlete team at the Virginia Thurston Healing Garden in Harvard on October 23rd. I'm going to do a 1o minute talk, a 30 minute class, and give out a handout for their personal practice. This is a great opportunity.

The above picture is from a Ashtanga handbook from the David Swenson teacher training, all marked up with my notes and sketches. If I ever lead a teacher training I am going to include pictures of the assists! I noticed that in the Yoga Mala, Sharath does this pose with his knee beyond the ankle, rather than stacked as I have been taught. I suppose it would be safe enough on the knee as long as your upper torso was stacked on your thigh. I think you'd want to be careful to bring the knee back over the ankle before rising up to prevent torquing the knee unnecessarily. The other thing I notice from both Swenson and Sharath, is the rear foot is not 45 degrees in, which I think I've been told? Rather it's perpendicular to the front of the mat, which I have found myself doing as well without really thinking about it. Details, details.