Small Adjustments

Small adjustments might seem like a no brainer.  Small adjustments have helped me get my triangle pose looking fantastic, and I am very proud to say I have an unbroken string of 86 sets of triangle pose without falling out (two on the 7th, and four per day since April 8th).  And, triangle posture isn't the only pose that small adjustments have helped, I have been rocking the balancing stick lately, as well several other postures that have gradually come a long way from where I started at the first of the month.

Today I made a small adjustment outside of class that has had a huge impact on my practice.  If you have been following along, you may remember my mentioning that I was having a little problem with my elbow.  For the last several days I have had to sit out of the standing bow pulling pose and locust pose, and other postures had been effected as well.

The answer seems so obvious now, but I woke up this morning and realized as I lay there on my side that my arm was a little numb.  You know, because I had been laying on it for the last several hours as I slept on my side...  Sleeping on my side had never been an issue before these last couple of weeks, and it is how I have always slept, but apparently when your body is trying to recover from several hours of yoga on a daily basis, it likes to have unrestricted blood flow.

This morning's class went well, though I still sat out the same postures, but when I crashed after class I made it a point to sleep on my back instead of my side.  I don't know if you have ever tried to change the way you sleep, but my body felt awkward, and fought me every step of the way.  I was tired enough that I won out, and successfully slept on my back.

My afternoon class was a huge improvement.  Just those few hours of sleep seemed to do the trick, and with only some residual soreness, I was able to rejoin the postures that I had been sitting out for several days.

Hopefully tonight I will be equally successful in forcing my body to sleep in manner it is not (yet) accustomed to, so that tomorrow I can test my hypothesis again and see if this small adjustment is going to be the fix I needed.

I am otherwise still going strong.  Since finding my base again after the middle portion of this challenge, I have continued to improve.  Just two more days, and I am only getting stronger!

Namaste.