Been doing some thinking

      I haven't really had any chance yet to read any books for fun, or personal preference for that matter, for quite some time. I believe the last one I read was 21 Things to Know Before Starting an Ashtanga Yoga Practice by Claudia Altucher.
      I started reading the Women's Book of Health and Yoga but hit a point where school took over my reading time. Not to mention the first part is mainly going over three sequences and I want to really go over those for understanding before I give any sort of information about the book. After I received my shipment of books from amazon to fuel my Ashtanga practice (I know it's pointless to have ordered books I can't read yet, but I was too anxious since I graduate in two months), I began browsing two of the books. One by David Swenson and the other by Gregor Maehle.
      Recently, I have only been practicing the first half of the Primary series for simple reasons really. One, the latter half of the sequence becomes progressively harder than the beginning, and two, there are tons more twists in the latter half. Pregnancy doesn't really allow much twisting due to the growth of another human inside your body. Nevertheless, I was determined to at least practice half of the sequence, that is until I couldn't perform some of the poses in the beginning half of the series due to twisting and bending, or really the act of my heel being pushed into where my now growing belly is.
       So! I broke out both of the Ashtanga books that I bought and flipped through them a little bit. By a little bit, I mean I really only flipped through one and read some. The other one is more of a picture book that breaks down the sequence and shows substitutes for poses that may be more challenging, which is actually quite appropriate for my predicament right now. However, after going over them both and hearing the repeated mysore statement, "beginners start their practice by having one pose given at a time until they have mastered that particular pose and can have another pose added to the series," I have given thought to stepping back my practice to a particular set of poses that seems to be giving me fits at the moment. Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana (Extended Hand Big Toe Posture) A-B-C and D use to be not quite so difficult for me. I think my balance is becoming off kilter due to my growing belly or just my lack of balance/coordination at the moment.
       I can get my foot up in the air in front of me, but when I transition my leg to the outside I inevitably wobble and then have to release my leg. It drives me insane that I cannot hold these positions now. I know that I will be able to get back into these poses once my pregnancy ends and I keep up a steady practice but it still infuriates me a little right now. I would modify the whole series for pregnancy but somehow I feel like that would be cheating the system. I think that rather than cheat the system or skip poses, I'm going to stop at the ones giving me fits at the moment until I either gain my balance or remain steady in my practice up until these poses. Wobbling is not fun but I am determined, belly or no belly, to gain some semblance of balance in at least ONE of these poses.

Tomorrow is a NEW day and I will sleep tonight and put the worries of today behind me.