Heat/Hands To Feet/IT Band

In the past two weeks I have practiced in the heat twice. They were my least satisfying practices since I returned from training. Following the sequencing and cueing of a teacher instead of my own body is growing more and more difficult. And the heat makes my body feel loose in a bad way. Flexible without the requisite strength for stability. 

I have been surprised at how open my body can be even without the extreme heat. It takes a little longer to warm up, maybe an hour or 90 minutes instead of 20-30 minutes in a hot room. But after a longer warm up my muscles are supple without being loose. I can stretch them but they still feel strong. Also there is so much strength, balance and awareness that builds through the warm up postures. This is where I get to know my body, my mood of the day, my response to adversity. 

Today I practiced the half moon series a lot. I did three sets of lateral half moon against a wall to assure good alignment. Then I did two sets each of the backbend and forward bend. I can't figure out why Hands To Feet Pose is a spinal extension and not a rounding of the spine. After bending the spine to the right, left and back, wouldn't we want to bend it forward? But Hands To Feet straightens the spine. Today I experimented with a different Hands To Feet pose, one where I tuck my chin and put my forehead on my knees to round my spine. It felt more ease-ful and complimentary to the other bends. 

Also I did three sets of Tree pose before doing Toe Stand and Short Man. I have been babying my left knee because of soreness. It is feeling better, so today I added Short Man to see how things went. It was too stressful on my knee, which is sore again now. I don't think I have any ligament damage because there isn't instability in the knee. My best guess is that it is IT Band Tendonitis, a problem commonly associated with weak hips which I think I have. I need to try to heal the tendonitis while maintaining my flexibility and strengthening my hips.