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1pose1day1year October-December 2020

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Everything fell apart with my daily sadhana practice due to COVID-19. I continued my practice intermittently, as best as I could, when I began making the earth shaking changes in my life which I described in an update.

I’m moving to Canada! When my house sells I’ll be in stasis at a temporary home in California until I am vaccinated and I tie up a few loose ends. Meanwhile, I’m doing the best I can with a daily bit of physical therapy work. There are a ton of yoga moves in my PT Rx.

My year of doing one pose each day was modestly successful, I’d say, looking back on it. I went for months with near daily attention with it. I don’t consider stopping something when one’s life is in the midst of upheaval to be a bad thing. One does ones best and carries on doing what one can do for today.

I may do another 1pose1day1year for 2022 after I’m more settled into my new home. My current daily focus is doing the physical therapy I need to allow me to return to activities I love. My challenge to myself is to hit 20 minutes of activity every day and to include a lot of recovery work. I’m nearly in my fifth decade and it’s time for me to adapt and accept that my body needs more respect and care as I age.

1pose1day1year September 2020

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This month I tried to deepen my daily yoga practice of doing 1pose1day1year of tadasana. I recorded myself speaking the Iyengar yoga instructions for mountain pose. I’d been saying the words to myself while doing the work but I found myself worrying too much about aggravating my tender spots of chronic injury.

I got the instructions from Yoga: the Iyengar way. Cover of Yoga the Iyengar wayMy recording runs five minutes 26 seconds. That’s a big jump from the one minute I’d been doing since starting this yoga practice nine months (!!) ago. The recording has allowed me to relax into my body and think less while focusing on truly gaining the benefits of precision.

I practice Ashtanga dhristi while I am in tadasana. Dhristi is were one puts soft focus during the pose. Dhristi is the end of one’s nose in mountain pose.Occasionally I’ll also do a full minute of silence in the pose after I do the posture with the recording. It’s a form of meditation.

I will also practice the pranayama for tadasana. To do the Ashtanga breathing, keep the mouth softly closed. Inhale through the nose and down the back of the throat with enough vibration to sound like Darth Vadar. Exhale through the nose.

I recommend Tadasana by Himanshi Parmar if you would like a great set of instructions for mountain pose that you might record for yourself. It’s consistent with the instructions for tadasana in my Iyengar-based book.

I was sore the first days of doing my daily practice with audio instruction. The body gets into bad habits over a lifetime so holding the correct posture works the body in “new” ways. Of course there will be soreness.

I have not been consistent this month, however. I threw my back out mid-month and have been doing my physical therapy exercises in lieu of tadasa as my pain allows. Sometimes you need to go with the flow and honor what your body is telling you.

1pose1day1year July-August 2020

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My 1day1pose1year tadasana practice took a hit this summer. My mountain pose yoga stood still (hah! see what I did there?). My practice has continued randomly during July-August.

I’m keeping at it though. I continue to work on my toes and the soles of my feet.

I had a lengthier practice yesterday. I decided to record myself reading Iyengar-based instructions rather than continue reciting only some of them in my head. I want to be inside my body rather than my head. I want to quit worrying about guiding myself to correct posture due to fear of injury. I can simply relax into the strong balanced stillness. I’m sure I will listen to it so much that I will absorb them and the audio can fade to none.

Meanwhile It’s been a long hot interesting summer. I gave myself a vacation from social media to keep myself more centered in working with my coaching clients and looking positively forward. I continue to manage stress by not having strict posting schedule but posting when I get the urge.

1pose1day1year June 2020

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mountain sun cloudAnother month of doing my daily tadasana. I haven’t built up beyond doing one minute. Instead, I have been focusing on how the pose feels.

I do a toes to shoulders meditation. Telling myself, “weight evenly distributed on my feet, soft knee, solid knee (lift quad) without hyper-extending, pelvic tilt, full belly breath, expand lungs, shoulders back and relaxed down, head tucked neck neutral.”

I have a lot of problem spots that need a talking to, obviously. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror to check my form. Sometimes I close my eyes and catch how I sway slightly because my weight doesn’t stay evenly distributed on my feet. I bring myself back to the pose, always back to the pose, back to my breath.

If I’m in the mood I’ll add some tree pose and ankle strengthening exercises. I’m very weak in my ankles after breaking and spraining them multiple times in my life. Balance is critical as one ages to avoid falls and broken bones.

I’d say I’m doing well with the challenge. I need to think about how I’ll focus my yoga practice during July. I think it may be time to go longer or do additional pranayama.

1day1pose1year May 2020

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Tadasana_Yoga-Asana_Nina-MelHoly crap it’s (pretty much) June. Not only is the calendar year half done, but I am officially six months through my year of doing tadasana/mountain pose. I started this in mid-December.

Time flies, especially when we’re in a pandemic and now experiencing much civil unrest due to racism and racist cops killing black people with impunity.

It’s been hard to be consistent. Our lives have changed suddenly and aren’t likely to return to the way things were in the “before times.”

I missed eight days, which is a big jump from missing only three last month. I have, however, been doing more than simply a minute of tadasana when I do yoga every day. Sometimes it’s a full sun salutation or two, occasionally it’s been a half-hour yoga DVD, and sometimes it’s been some poses that have also been prescribed to me as physical therapy.

There has been no change in my posture or pain levels. Healing chronic tendon pain is a slow process. Sadly.

I aim to do better in June.

1day1pose1year April 2020

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Another month under my belt with daily tadasana. I did 27/30 days this month. I continue to be somewhat half-assed about it. I do it to get it done and rarely spend a lot of time quieting my monkey mind or really focusing on the areas that need work.

I have had days where continued doing other poses after tadasana which is part of the point of this “challenge.” The main thing is developing a consistent practice where I do some form of yoga most days.

I’ve been able to look over the tick marks on my calendar now that I’ve been doing this for a few months. I can see that I’m skipping days more on weekends. Cool. Knowledge is power.

I need to ask myself what’s different about weekends so I can come up with strategies to work with the impediments. I don’t have a feel for “weekends” anymore. Each day feels similar when you work for yourself, from home.  I’ll ponder this going into May.