I like to do experiments with my body and learn from my own experience. In order to find a right balance, one needs to experience a bit of extreme (off balance). A few years ago, I was practicing yoga only 2 or 3 times a week. A day or 2 following the practice day was to rest and cure - hamstrings and other muscles were in pain. The progress did not seem to be so fast with this approach. If one understands how damaged muscles are rebuilt (it becomes thicker and shorter, but stronger), it is not difficult to realize that doing yoga only after muscle pains are gone is not an ideal pace. We want them to get longer, thinner, more flexible and stronger. Because of this experience, I wanted to increase the frequency when I restarted it last summer. I started with 3 times and soon increased to 4 or 5 times. Then, in 1.5 months (in the middle of August), I started to practice 6 days a week, as traditionally recommended. I had no confidence if I could keep this pace. But, I wanted to continue at least until the shortest day of the year in December. One of the reasons is because it normally requires 3 months to start to see some progress and half a year to really understand the progress. So, I tried and sticked with it. I experienced various pains in these months - right elbow, left knee, lower back. I did not stop, and I tried to understand why they were hurt. Soon, I understood that pains appear in the weaker part of the body, when the core part of the body is not fully engaged for different reasons (not open, flexible, strong enough, wrong understanding about the intention of an asana etc.). By now, all of these pains are more or less gone. I am pretty sure I will keep having new pains somewhere as I progress, though (in fact, I have some, for example, around my hip joints). For the first few months, doing primary series was exhausting for me, and I really appreciated the rest days (once a week and moon days). By the way, a funny thing is that I felt (and still feel) more pains in various places of my body on the rest days normally. I am curious to know if it is the case for others... Then, some time in November (3-4 months later), I started to pay attention to relax outer muscles and focus more on the inner core. Also, more natural breathing. I think I sometimes generate too much heat with a bit more forced breathing. At certain point after 4 months, I realized that doing primary series for 6 days a week was not so exhausting (despite of various pains on the rest days). So, I wanted to do a little experiment. I wanted to know if I am doing it in the right pace - that is, if I can keep going on without the rest days. So, I tried to do it from a moon day to the next without once a week rest - 13 days in a row. I did it in December. It was no problem and in fact I was feeling good by doing primary series every day. So, I now know the right pace of doing the primary series, as part of my daily life. But, it does not apply when new asanas are added - intermediate series. Then, I again realized that I need a rest once a week (or more sometimes I felt) besides moon days. I have no interest in practicing 7 days a week, even if I am only doing primary series (because having one day rest in a week also has a meaning of not being attached to practices too much), but such an experiment gave me a confident that 6 days a week is not too much for me. Now, my focus is to learn how I can resume yoga practice comfortably after the rest day. Its normally Monday in my case (sometimes Sunday). I often feel that my body is heavier and stiffer after one day break. Maybe, it is inevitable, but I want to make it more comfortable. My current assumption is that I am eating too much on the rest day. Maybe, I have to reduce the amount to eat on that day. I also started to realize that having a good morning practice has a lot to do with how long before I finish eating on the previous day. Inevitably, dinner becomes lighter and lunch becomes the biggest meal of a day. The earlier stop eating in the evening, the better I feel next morning. Last half a year, after the last drink (normally herb tea) in the evening, I have not taken any food or drink until I finish the morning practice next day. It has been working fine with me. It means 12 hours a day, my digestive system has time to rest. (Even so, I was sweating a lot during a practice until recently :-) ) Recently I also started to think what the feeling of hungry is. Is it really my body giving me a signal of needing energy or my emotion, mind or habit? My body definitely enjoyed some fruit juices and nuts etc. after the practice for some time. But, is it still the same? Given all these, I am doing a new experiment with fasting, in order to understand what is hungry and what I could possibly do on the day of rest once a week. :-) Yoga this morning (Friday) was just like usual. What happened on Wednesday was really strange... Today, the right side of Marichyasana D (the side I still struggle to grab hands) was no problem, maybe because I have been water fasting for 57 hours by then... Does it mean I must have a leaner body?!
Posted on: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 21:38:47 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015