Yoga experimentation

Snowed in... made for a day of tea, reading, yoga experimentation, working on new projects, thinking about how Einstein said “New ideas meet their greatest opposition from those who misunderstand them.” 

I’m going to start making more time for personal yoga experimentation.  Today, this led me to two little tricks that I thought I’d share:

Jumpbacks: I've been making minimal progress on these little buggers. But today at home, I put on socks which helped me slide my feet through my arms without having to pause in the middle for that awkward extra hop. Mariana has been telling me all along that I should get yogitoes, and now I see why. Maybe it's time for me to invest in this.

Handstand: Again, making little progress in my attempt to jump up keeping both feet together. Almost every day, my teacher has been pushing on my upper back between my shoulder blades saying “resist, resist, this has to be STRONGER.” I didn’t really understand what he meant. But then today while at home, I tried pushing my head against the wall while jumping up with my feet together. Somehow that also helped engage my bandhas, and it worked! The resistance against my head transferred to my upper back and I actually jumped up to handstand! Not the most graceful, but I'm learning to take baby steps...