Nov 16, 9:15: Tree Stand

I had a good yoga class again today. It's amazing what the heat does for our muscles. I often hear teachers say to people after their first class to come back the next day, even if they are sore, because the heat will make their sore muscles feel better. I'm sure most people don't believe it, and if they're sore, they wait a few days to come back.

Today I was feeling a bit sore in my lower back. I always do a bit of stretching before class, and I could feel some pain there, right away. I had to do all 4 parts of Half Moon quite gently, ease into each posture, because I was so tender. But after Half Moon, I didn't notice my lower back hurting throughout the rest of the class, even in Camel. The heat really does warm the muscles up well.

I was chatting with Lisa, who taught class, about Tree Stand afterwards. I think this is a posture that many people are able to just hang out in. One of the teachers from my old studio, Anastasia, would even sometimes say during this posture, "Don't hang out like a pinecone here. It's an active posture." But I have more or less always hung out here. I look into the mirror to make sure my hips and shoulders are in one line, I stretch up, I push my hips forward, I contract my glutes, and I roll my bent-leg hip down and out. But, I was able to do set all of those things up within the first 2 seconds of the posture, and it didn't take too much effort to maintain them.

I recently realized that I wasn't really locking my knee in Tree Stand. My leg was straight and I put a bit of thought into lifting the kneecap at the beginning of the posture, but then I would stop paying attention and my quad would relax. So now, I am spending all of this posture thinking about my standing-leg quads, and keeping them tight. And do you know what? Tree Stand is difficult for me now! My weight will start to roll to the outside of the foot, and it is hard to get it back when I am standing on one leg and my other leg is at such an angle. I even occasionally fall out of Tree Stand now, and that seems just silly to me. I still have work to do to build strength in my quads, though, so I just keep working on keeping my knee locked and thigh tight, and then I can get back to my hips, shoulders, etc.

This is one of the reasons I love this yoga - there is always more to learn, no matter how many times you've practiced any posture. No matter how much you improve in a posture, there is always a new aspect of it to open up.