I almost didn’t practice yesterday. I had indigestion and felt stiff and tired. But finally I shoved myself down the stairs to my practice space. I was going to do a few restorative poses and be done. But instead I got out Yoga: The Path to Holistic Healing (B.K.S. Iyengar), and looked up indigestion. Hmm, yeah, I can do that, and that, and that. I wound up doing almost the entire sequence, skipping only a couple of poses in the interests of time. It ended up to be an hour and a half, and was just what I needed. I felt energized, my guts felt better, and I was much less stiff.
The best part might have been Ardha Chandrasana. I’m still doing it against the wall, because my balance hasn’t quite recovered from foot surgery. You just can’t let your mind wander in this pose. You have to pay attention to everything at once. All four corners of the standing foot press down, lift up through the inner line of the leg (often my downfall), make sure your head is even with your body and not tipping down, get that back leg up and straight back, roll the top shoulder and hip back, open up your chest, and extend out everywhere. And all that time you’re breathing into each part of your body. Oh yeah, now go back and correct that inner line of the leg.
Of course we should pay attention in this way to every pose, but in many it’s easy to become complacent or lazy. Supta Padangusthasana, hm hm hmmm, what’ll we have for lunch? Not in half moon.
Once my teacher said “It’s yoga, exaggerate!” That’s what Ardha Chandrasana feels like.
Practice Notes 
I’ve been using Holistic Path quite a bit the last few months–since I got sick in December–and the Anxiety and Insomnia sequences saved my bacon. Meg says Mary O. and Eddie told her to pitch the old edition and buy the new one. The Iyengars hadn’t seen the first ed. before it went to press and they found many things to correct. I got a copy of the 2nd ed. and am comparing sequences and pages. They did not correct the errors in the anatomy pages–arrrgh!!!–but the first sequence I looked at did have some changes. Drat.
I have been changing my home practice space, but will write more about that somewhere else. Also have some stuff on balance issues.