Breathing Bikram

Finally got back to yoga yesterday and was so glad I did. Travel and lost weekends play havoc with yoga more than anything as we have to travel to get there and it's late in the day.When I am short on recovery it just has to take a back seat to real rest.But I was jones'ing for a deep,stretch in the tropic heat and was ready for class. I could feel my shoulders tightening up daily and I really needed to open them, and my chest up.
It's been amazing to me that when I started class I couldn't get my shoulders into half the postures as almost ALL require a significant amount of external rotation,something I just havent had much of in the last 20 years or so,lol.
Attempting to go into poses like eagle, standing head to knee,standing bow, floor bow,half locust camel and rabbit if you don't have enough external rotation you can't even get started in the poses.Perserverence usually pays off in most things but I was very surprised when I could really get my arms to turn out enough to grab my legs.
At first my shoulder would subluxate every time I forced myself into the posture and then try to get out of it.But slowly but surely it would sublux less and less until a couple weeks ago it didnt at all and I realized I had regained lots more shoulder extension and external rotation.And, guess what, my shoulder felt better all day long as well.So much of the problem was overly tight pec minor and major from 30 plus years of pushing pressing and benching, not to mention the full dislocation on rings,lol.Nothing has opened them up better than all these behind the back poses.Crazy, who'd of thunk it.
But yesterday I was determined to breathe throughout the entire class, as I always find myself holding my breath during the hard poses and once I get into any kind of oxygen debt in that heat it screws me up for many more poses if not the rest of the class.
I am always stronger( read more rested) coming back from a layoff but my endurance sucks and I going to make sure I didnt start holding my breath even if it meant my poses weren't as strong. Sure enough keeping my concentration on breathing the entire time make a HUGE difference; not only in my endurance but in the ability to hold the poses as well.
I take the pranayama breathing much more seriously now( the first set of poses in the practice) as I know how important it is for the rest of the class to really open up my lungs prior to the harder postures.
AS with most of the physical activities that hold my interest, the possibilities for going deeper into the skill is much more appealing than random acts of variety. I am just getting started plumbing the depths of this practice.
One more week of disrupted schedule( next weeks Cert) then a nice break where we can build some training momentum and get some more energy bucks in the bank account.I am low on reserves and don't want to get into savings. Time to build up the account for the fall and winter. Bikrams should be great fun this winter when its really cold out. I was thinking of buying a home sauna the last couple years as it's so hard to get really warm lately. This should solve that problem.

datsit.