1,2, buckle my shoe (without bending my knees)

I had a dream last night that I was on the beach somewhere with Katy doing partner work.  That is, we were dragging each other around by an arm or a leg in the sand, putting traction on the bones to increase their strength.  It was an odd dream to say the least, but I woke up thinking "geez, you can really work on alignment anywhere, can't you?".  Then I thought it was high time I did an update on my progress.

It's going really well, actually!  I surprised myself the other day when I realized I could touch the floor with ease, straight-legged, bending at the hips (not the spine).  I'm not fully palms down, but I'm not reaching and sratching at the floor, either.  They're down enough that I can start working a finger stretch into my hamstring stretch.

That little bit of progress is so encouraging.  I found that I put so much more time and effort into my stretching that day, after seeing some really positive results.  Though it's never happened to me, I guess it's the same feeling as if you're on a diet, and you step on the scales to suddenly realize you've lost 10 pounds.  It made me realize that all the little things I'm doing are really starting to add up.

Looks like his toes are even a little higher than his heels, super stretched!

I make an effort to always bend like Nanook of the North, getting a hamstring stretch in where ever I possibly can, even if it's just while I bend down to grab the butter out of the fridge.  I work on doing short little stretches (a minute or so) as many times in the day as I can, and once or twice a day I do a longer deeper stretch (about 2 or 3 minutes per leg).  I keep my halfdome kicking around my house so I can either do a pelvic list on it while balancing, or just stretch my calf on it while I'm talking to my baby, or typing an email, or watching a dvd or something.

So there you have it.  An update.  A good update, at that!  And it's not even 9:00 in the morning yet.  Happy Monday, and Happy stretching everyone!!