Summer Solistice, sleep deprivation, practice, eating oranges, broken tongue

So I hear that today's the summer solistice, and that some folks out there are doing 108 sun salutations. Good for all of you who are doing or did that already (what's the significance of this practice, anyway? Anybody know?). Not for me. This morning, I woke up at more or less my usual time after having slept only about 4 hours, the sleep deprivation owing wholly to my recently-acquired online chess addiction. I've noticed that I play worse online than in real-life (there's something about staring at a screen that makes me not see certain things I would have spotted in a heartbeat on a three-dimensional physical chessboard), but that doesn't seem to stop me from playing anyway.

The price of all this chess indulgence is, of course, sleep deprivation. This morning, I moved through practice at what I thought was a slower pace, but still managed to finish full primary and one-third of second (up to Supta Vajarasana) in an hour and twenty-eight minutes. Something is definitely happening to my body and practice: It moves fast even when it doesn't intend to.

After practice (as in, a few minutes ago), I sat down to eat a couple of navel oranges; this is a habit I've picked up this summer. For some reason, oranges taste really good after Ashtanga; anybody ever noticed that? I was chomping through the oranges and savoring them, when I chomped down on my tongue, and a sharp bolt of pain, the kind that makes you feel that you just might want to punch somebody or something, because that just might dissipate the pain (but of course it wouldn't). It took a whole two minutes for the pain to subside. And now I am sitting here writing this with a broken tongue. Will I be able to eat anything today? We'll see.

I have also been meaning to repost the Ashtanga Yoga Ann Arbor House Recommendations on this blog. It has been recently published into a small booklet by Laura Feit over at Small Blue Pearls and Laura Shaw Design. There's actually a very nice section addressing home practitioners and people (like yours truly) who do not have regular access to a teacher; I was (and still am going to) repost that here and say a few wise (or not-so-wise) things. But I've been busy writing and teaching, procrastinating, and... playing chess, so this has fallen by the backburner. But it's coming. Just you wait. In the meantime, I'm going to go nurse my broken tongue... damn! Who knew you can also injure your tongue while eating during the full moon?