This morning, I decided do my practice in what used to be my Buddhist prayer/practice room (for more details, see this post) instead of the living room, where I have been practicing for the last two months. I just felt that the prayer room seems to be quite a bit warmer than the living room, which might make for an easier practice (less internal heat to have to build up to get my system going).
Because the prayer room is smaller than the living room, the lighting from the ceiling light impacts my body at a more direct angle. Which means, among other things, that I could actually see my shadow on the wall as I moved through the Suryas. It's especially cool (not to mention ego-boosting) to be able to see my shadow lift its lower half cleanly off the ground in trini position, and then float and land neatly in Chaturanga. I even suspect that my shadow may actually look better than its owner (me) doing Ashtanga! For the record, I've never actually video-ed myself doing Ashtanga before. Which also means that I've never actually seen myself doing Ashtanga. Isn't it interesting that I'm never seen myself doing something which is so much a part of my daily life?
Practice on the whole was good today, if I ignore my rather uninspiring performance in Karandavasana. Tried the posture four times. Every single time, I missed my forearms/elbows, and dropped like a fly into seated padmasana (Ha! "Dropping like flies in Karandavasana"... sounds like a song or poem or book title :-)). But setting aside the uninspiring performance in Karandavasana, the rest of practice was great. The energy level was great, and I moved through the whole thing at a good clip; I did primary up to Baddha Konasana and second up to Karandavasana in about an hour and forty minutes. I know that the speed of one's practice is not the only indicator of the quality of the practice, but I really think there is something to be said for moving through the practice at a good clip. Builds heat, and also prevents one from over-thinking things. But maybe the downside is that if I had practiced at a slower pace, I would have had more energy to do a "better" Karandavasana; I can't help thinking that it may be easier to land Karandavasana (and eventually, come back up) if my breathing were a little slower. I don't know. We'll see what happens tomorrow.
In other news: I will be moving to Pocatello, Idaho in early January. A few days ago, I was offered a short-term teaching position at Idaho State, and decided to take it. It is not a tenure-track position (obviously), but the terms are, well, better than my present employment situation, so I decided to take it. Ah, the joys of not being on the tenure track...
Anyway, I just started looking online for apartments today, and basically getting myself into relocation mode. It's not exactly a small move, distance-wise: Pocatello is 16 hours from where I am presently at. I guess I'm lucky that I don't have a lot of stuff, so I won't have the problem of having to lug a whole truckload of things across the country. But I do have a few boxes of books (mostly works of philosophy and literature) that I would like to give away to anybody who would like to have them. If you live near where I am (Fargo, ND, and Moorhead, MN), and are interested in coming into the possession of a few (or more than a few) good books, please email me. Otherwise, I'll have to try to give them away to local used bookstores or my department or something.
Anyway, I know nothing about Idaho. The only people I know who are from Idaho are not even from this world:
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