Yoga in Another Body?

I got up at 6 this morning and practiced with my friend downstairs - my, was I stiff. The difference in flexibility at that time of the morning when I have literally got out of bed and got onto the mat, compared to getting up and getting to the yoga studio is amazing. Obviously, I have noticed that I am stiffer when I practice in the morning, but getting anywhere in London to practice tends to involve a walk, a tube, a bus, another walk and about 45 minutes of time, during which your body does warm up a bit. I felt rather like a pensioner - sun salutations were not even feeling like mine at the end of SNB! In Prasarita Padottanasana, my head must have been miles from the floor, and even getting head to leg in Janu Sirsasana was a bit of an effort. Couldn't really do Karna Pidasana properly - eek. I am glad I did it though, we will endeavour to do two morning practices together per week from now on.

One thing that I did notice this morning was that practicing with out glasses/contact lenses makes balancing really difficult - I am shortsighted enough that I can't really focus on anything much more than a foot in front of me - I ended up putting my glasses back on for the standing balances.

My new mat arrived yesterday - I haven't felt anything like it in terms of grip before, it really is quite something. At the moment it also smells very rubbery - in a rather addictive way too! I noticed doing Surya Namaskar that my feet must usually slip back a bit in transition from chatturanga to Urdhva Mukah Svanasana - with this mat my feet stay exactly where I jump them back to and I feel that my pose is shorter and the lower back stretch is more intense - rolling back over the toes in this short position is more challenging too. However, I don't need to adjust my feet at all in Adho Mukha Svanasana - so its probably all good, and a worthwhile stretch for my lower back.

Yesterdays step- class plan went out of the window when we got evacuated from our office - a crane on the adjacent building site buckled and the police were insistent that we all left, despite being a good 75 meters from the crane... oh well, an afternoon off work was not all bad :-)