My yoga teacher is away for a few weeks so I did a Rodney Yee yoga video last night. It was okay.

He got his yoga start in Oakland. Caused a bit of a flap by sleeping with a bunch of his students. Then absconding to the east coast with one of them.

Yoga secks ftw!

The video that I followed last night was filmed at J-Tree, Not sure where they fond two such proportional Joshua Trees for him to set up in between.

I noticed he was wearing a wedding ring in the video though.

Joshua trees can be photoshopped, too. I have never done yoga to a video. But good for you. I have been thinking that I need to do it again, but the fact that I probably have yoga to thank for my knee surgery is kinda stopping me.

If you do things wrong there are some yoga poses that can cause a lot of stress on knees. Still, I'm a little surprised that you feel that this is a major contributing factor.

I've been doing gentle yoga in class for a while, it sucks but I get the stretching I need. The vid was an intermediate video and I'm finding I almost have enough flexion in my ankle to do most poses again, but I'm still hesitant to head back to my regular vigorous class. I'll probably do the vid again tonight and then try to repeat the routine on my own at my own pace, giving me a chance to really stretch out what needs to be.

I don't remember if i ever mentioned the details... So, initially I hurt the knee doing the drop-knee. It kinda hurt at the gym after doing a drop-knee, and then I did a really really intense deep drop-knee on Stain when I sent it, and afterwards that was a whoa, can't climb, and it hurts to walk sort of hurt (even though I didn't feel it until I touched the ground, post-send).

So I rested the knee for couple weeks, and then did some strengthening exercises that PT recommended, and didn't climb for 1.5 months, and it got better. I went on a 2-week trip to St George after that, and the knee was mostly fine. By January I felt that the knee was recovered. I was doing boulder comps in January and February and not even thinking about the knee anymore.

Then in February I tore the A2 pulley in a bouldering comp which effectively ended climbing for a while. And I thought, o.K., no climbing, i can do yoga while I can't climb. So I was doing that, going to yoga several times a week, to a studio I'd gone to for years, and all was fine knee-wise, except one day in class we were doing hip-openers, and I tried to do the stacked fire log yoga pose... And I was like, uhoh, I don't think I should do this, this hurts my knee... but then the instructor came over, and was like, oh, you are WAY more flexible than this... and she pushed my knee down.

I didn't feel anything right away, it's not like anything tore dramatically. I was warm and stretchy, and the knee DID go down. But a few hours later, by that evening, it was hurting. A LOT. And then after that it didn't get better despite PT and all, and you know the rest of it.

ugh, that's terrible. I'm good with my yoga instructor right now, but as long as I can remember I have never been able to straighten my pinkies. I had one instructor come by and step on my hands because my pinky finger wasn't flat on the floor. Didn't hurt anything, but I didn't appreciate her stepping on my fucking fingers. I remember when I had hardware still in my leg and having other instructors trying to get me to lay on my right side with my hip (and the hardware) digging into the mat. NOT appreciated.

Fortunately none of these thing ever really hurt me and on another note I could never dream about getting into stacked fire log legs. I have tried, it's amusing, but more in a sad kind of way.

Digging into the anals here, do you guys remember the conFusions? Me and AB got hooked up with some of their crappy gearz for testing.

Well, during the morning sesh their shitty locker popped it's spring when I opened it to take the Grigri off. First time for that one for me. If they are still in business (sorta doubt it) I'll send them some info.

ugh, that's terrible. I'm good with my yoga instructor right now, but as long as I can remember I have never been able to straighten my pinkies. I had one instructor come by and step on my hands because my pinky finger wasn't flat on the floor. Didn't hurt anything, but I didn't appreciate her stepping on my fucking fingers. I remember when I had hardware still in my leg and having other instructors trying to get me to lay on my right side with my hip (and the hardware) digging into the mat. NOT appreciated.

Fortunately none of these thing ever really hurt me and on another note I could never dream about getting into stacked fire log legs. I have tried, it's amusing, but more in a sad kind of way.

I've only been to one or two yoga classes in my life, but I've done a lot from videos, and I like it.

I'm not a violent person, but if a yoga instructor did that to me, I think I'd punch him/her in the face. Actually even just these stories make me think twice about doing a yoga class (in person) ever again.

GO

Digging into the anals here, do you guys remember the conFusions? Me and AB got hooked up with some of their crappy gearz for testing.

Well, during the morning sesh their shitty locker popped it's spring when I opened it to take the Grigri off. First time for that one for me. If they are still in business (sorta doubt it) I'll send them some info.

Seems extreme. Generally yoga teachers ask if anyone is working around injuries. That is super bad though, just cranking on someone without asking. I've never seen it.

Switching topics, I am so frustrated with my training right now. (or the inability to do it, more like)

I'm supposed to be in PE stage. Which means 4x4s and linked boulder circuits. This used to be SOOOO easy to do, the easiest thing to do in the gym. but it is all changed now.

In the first place, the gym is a lot busier, so it is hard to find time when you can do this.

In the second place, they are switching the setting to one-color-holds-per-boulder problem. It looks good on the wall, and they are getting positive feedback from people who found it too difficult to follow the tape color.

But it SUCKS!!!!! for me. Because the walls are much more sparsely set, there are only so many hold colors you can put in one place. So before, if there was no set of 4 problems on the wall that were in the range I needed for 4x4s, I could just throw couple extra holds on the wall, to modify the problems that were already there, or make up another problem or two, from the holds that were already on the wall, and all was good. Now I can't.

And the setting is the same, in terms of how frustrating and all over the place the problems are for me.

The wall where I was going to do my 4x4s was recently reset. they put 2 easy, ~6 moderate, and 1 "hard+" problems on the wall. And that's all you can do, in terms of color possibilities. Guess what? I can do two easy problems, and 1 hard+. Except it is not hard for me. It is moderate at most, with 2 hard moves right off the ground, and the rest is easy. I guess the holds were too small and crimpy to put them far apart...
I haven't been able to do a single "moderate" route. I keep trying... I can see maybe eventually getting two of them.

But regardless of grading, this means I can't do 4x4 on that wall. The easy ones are too easy for what I need. The hard one is not continuously pumpy, if I can get through the first two moves, it is a walk. And I can't really put more routes or holds on the wall, because colors!

Now the other section was reset, and it is the same story. There are maybe 2 problems that would be in the 4x4 difficulty range for me, but they are not exactly the kind of problems I wanted in 4x4s that I had in mind. I was hoping that if i got to set on this new section from the get-go, I would be able to put 3-4 problems there, that would be what I needed, but I had to leave before I finished, to get Alisa, and when I came back the next day, the wall was filled up, and we are out of colors again, so... it is filled up, but not so filled up that you could just do random add-on and make up your own problems.

Sigh... I guess I'll just have to do more road trips.

I'd feel worse for you if I had a gym to train in. My little training wall is small so I'm pretty limited to strength and hangboard stuff.

Having given my dose of non-pity, I will comment on how colour coded routes and problems suck. You always get the green holds mixed up with the blue holds, and once the black hold get covered with chalk they look purple.

On a bouldering wall this is much much worse because how problems always overlap. It's a terrible idea.

Yeah, this tapeless trend in gyms has high potential for cocksuckery. Not just the problems that Lena's tawking about, but just the fact that it ultimately hinders creativity in what holds setters can use, unless the gym has huge reserves of like 6 of each hold in each color. It's ok for routes at these large, new school gyms, but for bouldering it's lame. It sounds like sub-par problem setting, combined with the new tapeless thing, is taking it to new levels of lameness at Lena's gym.

I'm pretty happy with the current home gym/pseudo-co-op we've got here. No tape at all, just massively concentrated holds that you have to get dialed and set your own circuits.