Stamina

This week is an excellent yoga week. Four times I went to a Mysore class. Tomorrow I'll participate in a led class. Today I had the feeling as if I have soft-boiled my body during the week and that I can reap from that work. The practice was easier like on other days.

My thoughts became more and more enthusiastic after my practice. As if it had happened already that I stood up from urdhva dhanurasana, so cheerful I was afterwards. It's possible, it's possible was my conviction. Thoughts change. I observe them and I enjoy the variety. I don't confuse them with the truth.



Today I realized how relatively far I went already. I was stiff and weak 11 years (!!!) ago. Many asanas seemed impossible. I can do them all. I achieved this because I kept practicing. Stamina is a key word. Perhaps also stubbornness. This is almost the American dream: From stiff and weak to flexible and strong. Haha.....

My first tip of the day: keep practicing. Progress cannot be seen in a few months only. What you might like today, you might like in 20 years, too. So work on it. Life is over when we are dead, not earlier.



During my Ashtanga yoga practice I breathe, I don't think so much. Afterwords I'm most of the time in best mood as written already. Where is the next horse to ride is my attitude. Bring it on.

The mind becomes active again. Ideas come up. Distraction is welcomed, too. I want to write, I want to take pictures, I want to do this and that.

Yet I also start thinking about my teeth. My long-term readers know that I had major issues. Five hours the dentist worked only on my upper jaw a few weeks back. It was exhausting, also psychologically. The treatment is not yet over. Yet I can already say how much yoga helped me. How? I learned to concentrate on the breath. This helps to relax and to forget all the other issues that occur in every life. It centers me. This shift in focus gives events that happen another priority. I'm not only my teeth. There are so many other things in life that deserve to be focused on.



Second tip: Find a real passion. Something you LOVE to do. It's the best medicine for everything.

In my case it's Ashtanga yoga and photography.



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Till bakasana

My current focus is back bending, back bending, back bending.

I know that this is NOW the best strategy. It makes no sense to learn more and more asanas and to skip the back bending ones.



It's hard. Back bending challenges me. I know it's better not to ask on a daily basis if progress happened.

To be present every day, to exercise every day, to stay optimistic are the ingredients that will finally lead to the goals. The path and the goal are equally important, they are not in competition.



This morning I got up at 5am again to join the Mysore class. To practice in the morning is the best. I'm so enthusiastic, so motivated.



For me a balanced practice includes forward bending asanas, twists, back bending asanas, balancing asanas, inversions and the rest pose. How exactly these poses look like is not so important even though I have preferences. Yet these preferences have no influence on my behaviour, they entertain me. I know that the mind works like this. The mind compares and wants to find out what is good and what gives not so much pleasure. I exercise the asanas I like, yet also those I don't like so much. I don't care if an asana is challenging for me or easy. Bring it on, I exercise it.



Time to move on. The day after traveling is a hard-core working day.







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Samastithih

Samastithih position is not the prayer position.

Just to stand tall, calm, feet together, arms on the side is not that easy. I usually enjoy this pose. This is the starting point of my practice. With the next inhaling the show can begin. The breath initiates the movement, ekam, arms up.......



In the meantime we are in Italy close to the Lago di Garda and tomorrow we'll be at home. Time flies.

Internet connection was not always good. It's OK, too.

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