Finally locked that damn knee!

Have been sick since my last trip back from Asia. Still managed to go on and off to the hot room as the Kaiser advice nurse told me "you are doing all the right things. electrolyes, rest.. you still have a lot of phlegm and mucous. so put on a humidifier.".. I knew which humidifier was going to be used over the weekend. 

Went to the hot room and stayed put. It did bring out a lot of the mucous. Also felt better by Sunday evening. Did a full days work today and was happy that there was no sudden urge to go curl up into a fetal position and sleep. Being tired physically and mentally doesn't help.

This evening I show up for a class by Mr. Fire, who gives me the most grief in any class, knowing I love him for it. 

Did my best locking of the knee and he picked on me right away. Then he starts giving me readings from his lockometer on the podium.. it is 99.5% , 99.8%.. 

I thought it was at 110% going to 120% and was honestly disappointed to know it was still at 99 something %. Pushed my knee back and was just about to fall forwards as usual, when the teacher looked elsewhere at another student and said "look at your own eyes" and for some strange reason I looked up to see my eyes in the mirror instead of my knee that was 99.8% and like magic, didn't fall forward.

You see, my biggest problem (my perception, not my teachers evaluation) is that I am bow legged. That means, when I do lock that knee (okay it has been only once..) or get close to it, my feet, knees and waist will NOT be on one straight line, like other folks. Maybe, eventually yoga changes bone structure and one can come out of bow leggedness, but that eventually doesnt seem like tomorrow for me.. So I always grappled with this "counter weight" concept.

If you push your knees back and they stick out on the line made by your butt and feet, you have to have a counter weight to balance that when kicking forward.. The minute I lean forward, it is game over. 

Thanks to hearing "look up" I pushed my back, up and towards the back wall ceiling and there was the "counter" to the forward force. 

It takes years to figure out something. Hopefully this gives me a starting point to get from step 1 to step 2 on this pose. 

It is heartening because 99.8% is an F for this pose. There is only two grades on this pose for part 1.

100% locked knee = D, anything less is F! 

Those five seconds were priceless! Will try to repeat this tomorrow and if sucessful  post a video of what I used to do before and what changed. 

Who knows, there may be many of my brothers and sisters out there with bow legs who might take something from my experience!