Oh when will I learn? So I am trying to catch up to the pace of one class a day and I am several behind due to snow and in a couple of cases sloth (I love that word. I always think of the animals sloth being all slothy in their pajamas while squinting at an alarm clock and then slowly and deliberately rolling over and back to sleep). So I tried to rush to a 4:45 class from the other side of town at like 4:22. I'm sure I broke a few traffic laws and bent several others. I got to my house which is literally (no really literally, not literally like the people who say things like "I was literally on fire")two minutes drive to Amsa, changed into yoga gear while scaring the poor kittens with clothes flying everywhere and rushed down my icy steps in bare feet. I got to class a couple minutes late and missed a really good explanation of frustration and mindfullness by Kimberly (I am aware of the irony here). How did the class go after my frenzied efforts to fling myself onto the mat?
Good: My plank pose http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/470 is getting a little better. It is still shaky after a while, but I can keep the proper shape longer than I used to. Yoga is sneaky. Long term practitioners often don't look that different from "regular" healthy people (though they are often older than you would think). However, they have the capability to do some pretty amazing stuff. Kimberly would say we all have the capability to do amazing things, but I mean in the short term. It's like we can become secret super heroes. In the meanwhile, hopefully there will be an emergency that requires someone who is slightly more flexible than average that I can help with (as long as it does not require bending directly forward while seated...).
Bad: So I rushed and fought and strained to get to class and then it was time to get into still poses and hold them for long periods of time. In case you did not know, Adrenaline + Testosterone does not = Yin. You know the hero pose virasana http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/490 I was so happy about recently? Busted. When I got to class, everyone was in hero while sitting on either a block or blanket for support. Of course fresh off my mad dash I was like "Blocks? I don't need no stinking blocks!" Sigh, yes you do Jesse. Especially if the pose is going to be held for ten minutes while we mentally prepare for the rest of the class. Especially if you are all tense and stuck in fight or flight mode. Especially if you are a block head who keeps talking about not letting ego get the best of them and instead simply letting the asanas do their work. So I swayed and fidgeted and started adjusting my hair more than my barber does.
Yummy: Despite my silliness, the poses, the awesome Zenny music Kimberly played and her always stellar and insightful instruction combined to eventually work their magic and I finally calmed down and got closer to the right frame of mind. Also John was there and those classes are always fun because he is a good male example for me to follow since (based on the classes he is in my line of sight) he gives good effort but rarely goes overboard. Also because he sometimes wears a baseball cap while practicing and I think he may be hiding some sort of small yogic animal familiar in there. It's just a theory I'm working on.
Come back soon and see how my first flow class in weeks went...
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