It's been some time since I've had a morning class. I'm stiffer in the morning, so the class can be a bit tougher than the later classes. But the day following a morning class is so great that I'm not sure why I've been going to the later ones. Doing this yoga early just makes everything fresher and more alive for the rest of the day.
Class was strong. I was in my usual spot, but the fan that blows on me wasn't working, so the usual spot was quite hot. The heat made the end of the standing series challenging, and I got up a really good sweat. But I didn't ever feel like I might drop anything, and I managed to keep fairly still. I only caught myself once bending forward to put hands on my knees.
The poses that have been strong recently were strong again today: Half Moon, First Two Parts of Awkward, Triangle, Locust, Full Locust, Camel, Rabbit. Fixed Firm was about the same as its been. Half Tortoise suffered a bit because of my knee. And the final stretches were also held back some. The good news is that I'm really feeling where the limit is for my knee and not pushing too far, and I felt much better after class, and even better now after a day walking (and a little running at the dog park). Actually, sitting is the activity (or non-activity) that seems to stiffen the knee up the most.
I talked to Lenette about it before class. She had me balance on my left leg and lock the knee. She watched for a while and said that its tending to point to the outside, and not in the line that it should. That's because I'm balancing too much on the outside of my left foot, and that's creating a misalignment in the leg. And that's because of my stupid bunion. Even with the bunion, she thinks I need to work on getting my big toe solidly onto the floor and bearing some weight. She was absolutely right about what to do to get rid of my sciatic problem, so I'm definitely going to try this advice.
She also said something that was a tremendous compliment. She said that in six months I've made progress changing the alignments in my body that most people don't see for several years. The adjustments, especially when they come this quickly, are bound to cause some temporary problems. So the first part of the compliment is how fast I'm progressing. Then she also said that most people would get into a problem like with my knee and take a day off, which would stretch into a week, and then the problem would recur and take a long, long time to solve. She knows (and I hope its true) that I have the determination to keep coming, and to be mindful about the knee, and I will likely get through the problem in just a small fraction of the time. So it was a great compliment, and its also inspired me to persevere at a time when I might have thought about slacking off some.
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