This is a brilliant exercise

My Teacher keeps giving me little bits and pieces to fine-tune my asanas. As soon as any asana becomes easier, he will make a small adjustment or make me think that asana another way, and boy, it is difficult again! "That's my job" he says and smiles...

Today's little adjustment was to aim at moving the shoulder-blade closer to the spinal column in the sitting poses where the arm reaches to the other side behind the back. ...While keeping the elbow close to the back. This makes much more space and allows the arm to reach much further. Just never thought about it before. It changes the Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottasana and all the marichys completely. This and my other on-going efforts with the shoulders and upper back have a smashing effect!

I like the way how understanding one little detail in one position changes your perception of a whole series of related positions: the series is very well-structured so that asanas are built on previous asanas, just taken further. In the beginning of the series, the gravity does half the job, and further on, we have to work more. It is brilliant.

Today I had to go to the corridor to have some light for my balance: the house was "full" and there were some people I don't know so well as to bother them with turning on the ceiling lights...