I am getting used to this home practice. In the beginning it was hard but since my teacher has set up the check in system via FB messenger, it got easier. I feel the connection with my teachers and other practitioners. This works. The power of Ashtanga yoga community! The intensity of the practice is not always same but at least I am on the mat every day. It's not only this practice that I got used to. I've changed my diet to strict vegan (I occasionally ate dairy before...!) and am doing everyday intermittent fasting. I only eat between noon and 5:30pm. And I drink alcohol only once a week (haha). It's been like... 2 weeks since I changed my eating habit and I feel so much lighter and lost about 1.5kg. This shows in my general mood and daily practice. It was hard to jump back and through at some point but now I feel fine. Twisting poses got a bit more comfortable too. I still want to get rid of extra 1.5kg (as I gained 3kgs after came back from India). I changed one thing in my practice. When I do drop backs, I straighten my arms to the ceiling even from standing. This way I feel I am really elongating my whole upper body. I feel I can push my pelvis even further forward and legs feel stronger. Weird. I am not really familiar with anatomy and don't know how this affects my drop back practice but at least I see/feel that this way is not hurting my back. I am the type who don't really set goals in asana practice but I think I want to improve, yes improve! my backbending practice... I am using a yoga wheel every day to roll on my back and give more attention in back bend.. Actually now I think about it.. I don't really put much more time in this practice. Rolling on the yoga wheel takes only about 5-8 min? And other things I do is just to take extra breaths in urdhva dhanurasana and practice more than 3 rounds... I am also taking videos to see whether how I felt right or deeper shows in the asanas too. One really good thing about home practice is that you can take videos. Watching them helps me tremendously in understanding my body and asana practice. Along with backbending, I also wanted to try forearm balance (pincha). Again I am not the type who focuses on one asana and work towards it (in this regards, I can consider myself as a lazy practitioner;;). But since I felt I was a bit limited in my inversion (as only inversion I do is sirsasana), I wanted to try. I looked up on YouTube and found a video on practising forearm balance with a wheel. Yes! My favourite prop that's been helping me my backbend can help my pincha too! So everyday for about 5 min I practice pincha. It's hard and I think it will take a long time... :-) I bought a new mat, super big squared mat from Manduka to boost my practice and to reduce injuries from falling (hahah very good excuse). Now the new mat nicely covers almost half of the room, I can fall and roll like crazy (hihi).
