I've been choosing primary series over second. Second feels far away, all the way through yoga chikitsa.  And it's hard, hard-er, it's where I fail. Today I realized that all the places that ache (hips, thoracic) get touched during second - I must have already known this, providing yet another reason to resist. But then I had to acknowledge that the aching is made worse by not doing, that intermediate touch  brings more relaxation than it does more pain. This is a profound testimony to the system of ashtanga yoga -a system that leads us through the body - what's required of the practitioner is courage and faith.  There is always ample opportunity for not doing -- fear of failure - but not so much the failure to jump into bakasana - but the failure of divination, or at least the fear of not being able to do what you've been called on to do.