Yogasana and the reclining hero pose

Today I had another fruitful class. We had the replacement yogasana class instead of pilates. The instructor helped correct my one legged reclining hero pose. I've been trying to do this from YouTube because it helps digestion but I kept hurting my knee. Today she corrected me and told me to keep the knees pointing up and put the weight on the opposite side of the body. I felt so relieved after doing it. I found that I have very tight lower back and front thighs. The stretch was good. I must practice this more.

We also did that hip opening thing that looks like a lunge. You have to turn your toes out and your knee out. So both the toes and knee are in the same direction. I could actually go down on my elbows!!!

We also did the child's pose and glided forward into cobra and back. It's good for lossening the tight back.

Last week she taught us the importance of the spinal twist. We have to hold our knees as close as possible to the body, turn back as far back as possible and breath in and out with the tummy. If you feel the tummy, it's the intestines that are filled with stuck food and poop.

She also taught us the alternate nostril breathing a few years ago. I never forgot it. It was the best remedy for headaches and blocked nose. Too bad she is not our regular instructor.

I'm blogging this for my personal reference so I don't forget how to do it. Next week we may not have this instructor so I don't want to forget.

20 thousand Steps! 20150512

Today I managed to register 20K steps on my normal pedometer but my Fitbit recorded only 18k steps instead. Ignore the stopwatch next to it....I was measuring time taken to get somewhere.

My fitbit sleep tracker

I have only started tracking my sleep recently because I have been having insomnia. I didn't want to wear the band while sleeping so I found an innovative way to wear it to bed. Will write more about it later in another post.

Here's how my sleep pattern for Saturday looks. It's bad because I had to wake up early to attend Easter Mass. I took a long time to fall asleep and it seemed to not track that. It only detects movements so if I turn, it will be recorded as restless.

Hamstrings and splits 20150324

My progress has been slow with the splits but I am slightly better than the time when I could not do the dragon pose without blocks. My hips have definitely opened slightly but I'm still not quite there yet.i can now do the lunge without blocks but I've yet to get stronger. More practice required.

Hamstrings and Splits 20150316

My hamstrings workouts are so-so. I can reach my toes but the progress remains there. 

And I'm still a long way off to getting splits. I think I have more than 20 cm before I can reach the floor but I can balance on my hands while attempting the splits. Since I have not been consistent. I should not expect too much. But the lunge practices help me do grounding for my chakras which is good.

Meanwhile I attempted to use the camera kit to connect my fitbit dongle to ipad 2. Sadly it didn't work....:-( I need to sync data with my desktop.

Hamstrings and Splits 20150315

Yesterday I practiced after getting lazy for 2 days. Splits seems like a long way to go but the excerises help me sleep better compared to the nights when I didn't practice. I now combine both hamstrings and splits workout whenever I can practice.

Steps 20150315

I notice that my fitbit seems to record more steps than my traditional pedometer... I haven't try recording my sleep yet. I've set my daily goal to 5000 steps per day as this is just for healthy life style.

This is how the screen looks like below.