greymatter432

acutes pains:

right shoulder - after initial shoulder warm up. tightness!
left inner hip joint - after leg raises / before knee to head curl

clicks and pops:
both ankles - foot circles

tightness:
right upper forearm / right outer hand - all finger focussed stretches

Form:
lots of moments of connection to form.
many more of realisation of losing form from total focus on articulation of specific body part. ie. left foot cir les. complete focus required.

Conclusion:
Actually a very challenging session due to the nature of repetition within a set posture for some time with sevral variations. Feel good and more connected atm. Great class content and direction from tutor.

great hip and legs and back and shoulders opener and warm up. Legs especially very warm to the point of jelly. All of a quiver. Time to go for my walk and jog intervals.

I was in a lot of lower back / hip-skirt pain for the last couple of days.Resulting in a weakness I know all to well.

Also, last week my outer hip joint muscles / ass where acutely painful.

The painful / revealing moments in this practice was the moment when my raised foot (held by my band) turned inwards.

The red and then white heat of the outer part of my leg was palpable - left leg. I had to stop the exercise.

Right leg, the stretch was felt through some painful discomfort at first. I managed to turn my foot and complete the exercise.

My focus areas to work through = glues, lower back / mid back / shoulders / twist of the spine, hips opening, glutei, piri-formis, hamstrings, and IT band all felt like they got a work out.

This is worth repeating daily to see how I get on. The lower back pain / weakness is a recurrent issue that I must respect my daily maintenance routine from now on. 2hrs in the morning whilst I have the opportunity to make it habitual.

Felt the exercise push my boundaries of breath when half breathing and (insert correct term here) staggering my breath out. I found I exhaled all my breath earlier than the 20, 30 and 40secs. David obviously has this trained well so of course finished on time.

My thoughts during meditation were fixated on watching the chris Packham documentary on his Aspergers diagnosis and my desire to explore this and dyslexia for myself before I build up too much hope that these are the answers I seek.

Yes, this was at first a tricky breath practice.

My natural state of chest breathing causes my belly to contract as I breath in.

So adding my hand to the belly caused it to feel very much like rubbing my belly and patting my head. Very physically confusing whilst listening to David - as well.

Upon getting the sequence right. I found my practice got me high like when hyperventilating. This state is enjoyable these days.

FYI. No brain space to think other thoughts than breathing!

onto the next one...

I can feel the old ways creeping in when I go too fast for my stomach muscles to relax enough to allow the vacuum of to fill with air. And so, I was forcing air instead.

Once I found my rhythm I found the air filled up my lungs of its own.

20 secs set = trial and error.. 30 secs = finding pace and intention on feeling air filling the void. 40 sec = intentions and pace aligned. Stomach muscles ache from new movement.

FYI. Slight buzz in the pre-frontal cortex from this practice.

The difference is tangible from the fogging up the mirror perspective. Brilliant tuition. Now to practice it!

yet to begin this course.

A quiet lion cub roar! Great analogy.

Not so good demonstration.

Rachel Scott's - half foggy mirror / half nostrils technique is best.

This technique is not entirely known to me. I have been secussfully belly breathing since Wim Hof method 2 and bit years ago. Also, belly breathing is a part of the Breath Mechanics techniques introduced to me from Keith KJF when in rehab for my back.

However!

Breathing into the 3dimensional space is a new physical experience when broken down into 3 parts of the technique.
1. belly
2. sides
3. back.

All the while being aware of the diaphragm moving up and down. The ribs moving up and down.

A thought that occurred mid meditation. How useful it must be to have these techniques for Digjeridoo and beat boxing. Both musical instruments I have love for - their simplicity and trance like qualities for the self and others.

Also, my mind went to being a UFC fighter and being in some very worrying grappling situations. My mind went into survival mode again. How useful to be able to find where you can still breath when being battered by another fighters locks, blocks and barrage of punches. Just saying Adam. How useful. How I would find myself in this situation is surely a choice?!

Accepting aggression is the start too the slippery slope. Aggression does have its place - sure. And, it's time. Am I really past that time. What do I have to prove here? Nothing, surely? I guess I am concerned for my future self when I think about fighting survival techniques. Yes, that is it! Ok, Acknowledge this and move on. Breathing is the foundation to calm discourse and discussions about troubling things that when not handled respectfully can (with the wrong techniques and tools of discourse) can turn ugly. This is a very good point and a huge reason to continue to do practice these techniques. To enjoy them and use them for growth when grounding my self to the route reasons, set out above.

Grounding myself
Betterting my yoga practice
Rehab of injuries
Musicality
Surviving!
Thriving!

Interesting sensations. Both known and unknown.

1. front mid-chest
2. sides / intercostals?
3. back

Consciously breathing into these zones is challenging.
a) to know if I am doing them correctly. and actually isolating each zone?
b) practicing different paces and not tensing up the jaw, back and hips.

Practice will tell me more... in time!

Familiar and yet un-familiar - again. Because of splitting the zones consciously

1. Upper front chest / ribcage
2. upper shoulders into the spine.
3. Upper back / shoulder blades.

I have successfully used this breath zone (3) many time along with mid-chest (back) breath to work through the tightest of back and shoulder muscle, cramps, stiffness and acute pains from my muscular skeletal system issues from the accidents and injuries thereafter.

Often balling myself up into baby's pose and similar so as to get the best out of each breath, really reaching the parts other breaths cannot reach. Just like the Carlsberg ad!

Brilliant!

Felt the usual tensions of:
* Jaw
* lower back
* Chin down to chest.
* shoulder blades

New acute / passing pain::
* Upper-front-chest

Felt very similar to my own breathing preparation to WHM / running breath after sprinting / Cycling breath after hill climbs.

This practice comes at time when I am actively planning to invest and sustain in my self-care plans to enable me thrive when training and running a marathon around Charnwood area.

I found that counting and managing the 3 breath phases to be tricky at times. Especially when closing down from 4 counts to 8 counts to 16 counts.

My diaphragm will get stronger and therefore exact more control over my breaths In + OUT as I practice these techniques mores. Especially when first breathing OUT. Releasing too much air probably comes from so many years of fire breathing. The longer OUT AND IN breath control and using my abdomen comes from my street show intro - LAAAAAAAAAAAAAADIES AAAAAND GENTLEEEEEEEEMEN, BOYS AND GIRLS. ARE YOU OUT THERE???!!!

Also, around that (circa 2017) time was when I looked into breath mechanics after speaking with Keith (KDS) and started smoking a lot too.

Feels great to not be smoking anymore - nor want to smoke! Wunderbar!!!

Wow, the pace and depth of the twists series of movements from triangle pose was intense. Far too intense for my right legs which is again prone to severe cramps. from the rear of the quads through to my calf and middle toes.

I did this cool down as a response to an educated decision to provide my self with self care for this marathon.

Using a ball of foot and smaller stride depth over 5miles meant my ankle, Achilles and calf cramped up in response to my IT band twinge form nth stop of my right hip bone.

Debut doing this practice after 3 part and rhythmic breath practices. . Observations:

dry spot in oesophagus kept interrupting practice. just behind my apple.
joints aching.
small of back was uncomfortable by the end of all practices (lower back has been twinging from lunchtime = 3hrs ago)

Good connection to lungs throughout practice.

Tendency to press hard against the 3rd eye.
+ clutch jaw.

Bottom molar tooth pain spiked for a moment.

I found this exercise after having had 2 recovery days. 1 day with a deep hip stretch exercise and 1 without any stretches. I felt it wise to ease into stretching my legs - namely my hamstrings to see what the sensations are telling me. This exercise came after 5 rounds of breath work and so my body feels warmer and more energised to go straight into a deep leg stretch as this. However, I decided not to over extend the stretches and use them as a warm up too.

I did no use my new ankle or knee medical supports (mild tensile support) as I wanted a true sense of the stretches. I feel ok to go into my pre-run routine with Fiji now. Thanks David for a relaxing warm up of PNF stretching.