We are three weeks in, people!
It is known that it takes about three weeks for something to become a habit.... So... Is a daily practice now a habit for you?
It should be. Keep in mind, we are only about 20% through the challenge now. Still a ways to go. We have 81 days left. But after the first three weeks, it should be a of piece cake.
Piece of cheese cake!
Getting to the room each day is the easiest part for me now. And I have noticed some changes in my postures and my body shape after 21 days. With my body, my arms are tightening up. And my shoulders are toning as well. With my poses, endurance is coming back. It's been great. I'm seeing my poses stabilize right before my own eyes.
In fact, every posture I do has had a noticeable change in its look and feel for me. Every pose, that is, except for Half Tortoise.
I have always sucked at this pose. And the sad thing is, it's one of the easier-looking ones. My problem with it is that my forehead does not go to the ground. Not even if my hips are hanging freely in the air, away from my heels. My waist seems to be too short, and I can't lengthen my torso over my legs to get the spine stretching from the heels to the fingertips.
Over five years of practicing, I have seen improvements in every other pose... Just not this one. It is the bane of Bikram practice existence. This pose is the exact same for me as it was in 2004, at my first class.
My hope is that over the next 81 days, I will continue to see changes in all my other poses... But I really want to see some specific change in Half Tortoise. I want to get my forehead to the floor.
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We will let out a shout worldwide when that happens! Maybe I can wrap my damn legs on at least one side that same day! What a party that would be...wooo hooo!
I'm curious. Do you know what regular Child's Pose is? If so, can you touch your forehead to the floor in it? Basically, Half Tortoise is a variation of Child's Pose. In Child's pose, its perfectly OK to round the upper back. If you can touch your head to the floor in child's pose, then from there, you can put your arm out and start stretching forward to straighten your back, while keeping your head on the floor. Eventually, that stretch will make it so your forehead, and not the top of your head, touches the ground. Just a suggestion, and the nice thing about this one is that no warm up is required.
Funny enough... I can NOT touch my forehead to the ground in child's pose... Even with my back rounded.
Can you touch your head even if you lift your hips up very high?
Yep... that's the only time my forehead "grazes" the ground... When my hips are high up off my feet. Even then, I have to struggle to get that grazing.
We had a session with Juan M for a couple of weeks ago. One of the postures we talked about was this one. Step one is to get the forhead on the floor don't matter how high the hips go and then start working from there. Never let the forhead of the floor.
Then straight arms.
Then hips down.
This is not one of my favorites but it has become better after this, I found a new stretch when I am very keen on keeping the forhead on the floor.
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