Warrior One

My friend entered herself and me into an Instagram drawing a few months ago. And we won! The drawing was for a private yoga session for 2 with one of the instructors my friend knew at her local yoga studio. I’ve never won a single thing in my life. The irony of the winning name having been initiated by my friend and not me is not lost on me. I really have no luck.

After a few months of back and forth emails trying to confirm a date and time, we got together. Yippee! It was a great session. I had my alignment adjusted by a trained professional. Questions I have had for a long time were finally answered. One of the questions was around hip position in a pose called Warrior 1. I have always been perplexed with this pose because there is another relatively similar pose called Warrior 2. I was always mixing them up – doing arms for warrior 1 and legs of warrior 2 and vice versa.

Partly, my self-imposed game of ‘Twister’ had to with my recent yoga classes being in a studio with a mirror. I often found myself gazing at my position and feeling awkward with the reflection in the mirror. It made me second-guess my hip placement, foot alignment, etc. To put my thoughts at ease, I asked the instructor to explain the differences. Always go with your gut, people! You know more than you think you do.

She said my alignment and positioning was correct. She also confirmed my theory that mirrors do not belong in yoga studios. Yoga is a personal, internally-focused exercise. By looking in a mirror, and ultimately outward, it becomes competitive. Comparing yourself with others is inherently against the foundations of the practice. In order to be more mindful of my practice, I will wear my blind fold and do the various poses.  Here’s to a new way to do yoga!

Practice Makes Perfect

Yoga has been a part of my life to some degree or other for quite some time. I can’t remember when I took my first yoga class but I do recall that when I came back from visiting a friend in California, it became a more regular stress relief tactic in my life.

My sister was so generous to get me a private yoga session for Christmas at the local yoga studio. I was more than thrilled to use it. I contacted the studio and they put me in touch with an instructor. We then scheduled a session.

The instructor wanted to know a little about my practice and what I wanted to focus on. For over an hour we worked on getting deeper into poses that would help me stretch my sitting focused body. She made adjustments to poses that I was doing well but where I could tweak and change a slight foot or hand to get into those nooks and crannies of my forever seated soul.

By the end of the lesson, I felt so relaxed and gooey from the stretching that I didn’t want it to end. The instructor and I exchanged other information about ourselves and she was incredibly nice and helpful. I really wished all my yoga sessions were like that one (i.e. not worried I’m going to kick the person on the next mat over because the studio was all for ME and ME alone). 

A few weeks later I took a yoga class while I was on a trial membership to my friend’s gym. At the beginning of the lesson, I informed the instructor that I had never taken her class before. This particular form of yoga was all about getting deeper into the poses with use of blocks and straps and holding the poses to get optimal stretches. Again, by the end of class, I was floating on a puffy perch filled with chocolate. It felt lovely to be so light. 

What made these classes so wonderful was not only the stress relief and stretching but also that both of the instructors said I had a ‘lovely practice’. This comforted my whole being. I can’t say that I am an advanced yogi because there are some poses I just won’t do. However, I have been honoring the mat long enough that I felt these comments were deep compliments. It made me so happy to finally get some reassurance for my actions and accomplishments (because we all know I don’t hear them too often at work). It isn’t to say that I was looking for validation in taking these classes in any way. It was an added bonus to know I had done a good job all these years being patient and practicing poses. It reinforced my feeling that with time and focus, all good things can be achieved.

Mirror Image

I’ve been doing a lot of pre-natal yoga while I’ve been pregnant. It has been incredibly helpful in loosening up the very tight muscles that come with pregnancy. It has also helped temporarily relieve my back pain from last year that made a happy reappearance through these pregnancy months. 

The best part of yoga is that it’s relaxing. I have always found it to be calming but never more so than now. Just holding positions and letting muscles stretch is soooooo nice. 

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I was feeling very energized during each class. Then I noticed something that wasn’t so apparent before. My belly!  It wasn’t as if it didn’t exist prior to my discovery; it just didn’t look so big. It kept haunting me during this particular class. I felt like this crazy rubbery creature that had three enormous bubbles on its body – my head, my belly and my butt. 

I  seriously wondered why this was bugging me so much and I realized that it had to do with the how the substitute teacher set up the class. Our regular instructor never made us face the mirrors. She must have somehow known that would be bothersome to very emotional women. She conducted class  so that we always faced the bare walls. However in this class, we were constantly looking at the mirrors. 

I’m not one who walks around in general peering at myself in any reflection. I don’t believe in doing that for a number of reasons:

1)      My hair usually looks a mess and I don’t like to be reminded of it. Ignorance is bliss for a reason.

2)      I usually look tired and don’t like to be reminded of it. Again bliss in ignorance.

3)      I think it’s vain to always look at oneself in a reflection. I like to accept myself for who I am and what I look like at the moment – an occasional glance is fine but I see many people fawning over themselves for minutes in a reflection. I think that behavior is unhealthy.

It was definitely disconcerting because I usually don’t feel bad about the way I look. Most people would probably say that I look like I never care. Generally speaking, I am very low maintenance.   It was the first time in recent memory where it really dug a hole in my brain. After it dawned on me that I wasn’t an enormous globe, I felt better.  I decided to continue to keep the mirror reflections to a minimum so that I wouldn’t judge myself or have a baby body moment. Now if I walk passed a mirror or reflection, I don’t feel as bad because I know this is just temporary.