Reporting My Practice

In the Yoga Jam Session this weekend, I did my first ever scorpion (vrschikasana). Well, with a lot of help from Casey and Chair. Eager to experience this again, I set up a chair here at home. I could not remember for the life of me how to kick up into it, but I found a YouTube video where the guy starts out in headstand and then drops down into scorpion, lifting his head. I'll share the video because I thought it was helpful, simple, and beautiful. Of course, my scorpion was wayyy clumsier and not nearly as curled as this, but it still felt pretty cool and I'm excited to play more. It's a total-spine experience, from front to back and from top to bottom.

Illogically, I did scorpion and THEN did the following sequence. I only did it like that because I hadn't planned to practice for real:

Easy Lunge Salute (R leg leads)

Uddiyana Bandha x3

Lunge Salute (L leg leads)

-Low Lunge

-Dog with Uddiyana Bandha (I find this breath much easier when my torso is upside down)

Tadasana, tuning to Ujjayi breath

Lunge salute (R leg leads)

-Lunge

-Twisting Lunge

-Low Lunge

-Runner's Lunge (clearly i needed some hip attention)

-Prasarita Padottanasana A (wide-legged forward fold)

• with legs in that position I did tripod headstand
• bow and arrow twist from jam session with hammock after each arm

-back to Lunge

Dog

other side the same except while in prasarita legs I did:

• hammock
• 3 uddiyana bandhas in hammock
• bow and arrow twist

-back to Lunge

Dog

Two embarrassing plank chaturanga push-ups that almost did me in

Extended childs to recover from the failure of that

Baby Cobra...Locust...Bow...Windshield Wiper

Yin Frog

Roll to back, feel effect

Yin Saddle (came into it from supine by tucking feet under hips)

Pause, feel effect

Tailbone curls/arches

Shimmy

Knees to chest wobble (didn't feel like doing a long yin counterpose to the saddle, but these moves seemed to smooth out the compression wonderfully)

25 bicycle crunches

Supine twist pausing in savasana between sides (I like imagining that this is balancing my Left and Right Brain Hemispheres)

Savasana

Namaste

All in all it took about an hour and a quarter, not counting vrschikasana (the hardest sanskrit word ever).