Nov 2, 9:15

I skipped class yesterday. I went to a Halloween party on Saturday night in the next town over and didn't get home until 3 in the morning, at which time I needed to cook some food, so I didn't get to bed until 4 am. Four hours of sleep wasn't going to cut it for me, and my studio doesn't have any afternoon classes on Sunday.

In today's class, we had a guest teacher from New Zealand. We've had quite a few guest teachers lately, and I have to say that I like classes where the teacher has an accent. I have really good focus. She had nice pacing as well - overall, a great class for me, and I feel like my sugar hangover is now completely gone!

She also set up Spine Twist differently than I'm used to, and for the first time ever, I felt something in my back in this one! I usually feel Spine Twist in my hip flexors. (I talked to Ida about this once, and she said that it does act as a hip opener for some ppl based on anatomy, and this was fine.)

This is the order I am used to:

Right knee bent on floor; left leg over top; right arm up and over, grabbing the right knee; left arm on floor behind with palm at base of spine, pressing floor; stretch up; grab inner thigh with left arm; stretch again; twist backwards. (Keep stretching and twisting after that.)

This is the order we did today:

Right knee bent on floor; left leg over top; left arm on floor behind with palm at base of spine, pressing floor; right arm up and over, grabbing the right knee; stretch up; stretch again; twist backwards; grab inner thigh with left arm. (Keep stretching and twisting after that.)

The two differences: dealing with the arm that goes to the base of the spine before the one that goes up and over the bent leg. And, grabbing the inner thigh after twisting has already started, instead of before.

I can't believe these two small changes made such a difference in the pose for me. This makes me wish there were two sets of Spine Twist so that I could try each way, back to back. I will try to do the new way for the next few classes, though, anyway, and see if the results are consistent.