I walked into my usual Monday evening "absolutely freaking I love yoga awesome" yoga class today and withing 2 minutes didn't want to be there. I sat down and let the heat touch my body and immediately noticed the thought that ran a race through my head "this is going to be a loooooooongggggg class" ... great i said to myself. I'm already here at the far left side of a room of 100 or so people, there is no where to go. I can't believe I'm even thinking this thought, it's like committing a sin, I AM a yoga teacher after all... but I had embraced that more that a yoga teacher, I am human and therefore have a right to feel the way I do at all times. So I started chanting, and then moving through the motions, some forward bends, some push up chaturangas, ah what the heck I will even do the double chaturanga today, and then standing on one leg and stepping back into crescent lunge.... and.... losing my balance and almost falling over...wait a sec... where is my crescent lunge?! I love crescent and look like a pro doing it... but today I looked more like a beginner trying to find my legs. And then it hit me... I am a beginner... at least today I am. It's the first time I have ever done yoga after climbing Mt Tam the day before. The legs doing THIS yoga practice are different from those that did Friday's practice and those that did last week's practice. The teacher was right, I hadn't ever been in THIS pose before. I had probably done crescent lunge a million times in my entire yogic practice but THIS one was different. Along with that my Warrior 3 was different and my hips were different and even my mind was different. The one thing that I have truly embraced through my yogic journey is being "different", it's a powerful feeling when you finally accept it. I glanced around at beautiful Warrior 3 poses while I kept my balance with my fingertips on the ground, it was okay. I breathed deep and let go of my day and with each breath something amazing happened, I was arriving to the place that I was meant to be. By the end of 90 minutes my cycling body met my yoga body and became one in savasana. I walked out of class without a doubt that I was supposed to be in that class... and to think I wanted to walk out as soon as it started. Thats the power of yoga. Just like cycling all you gotta do is "show up" the rest just happens.
So how does a cycling body meet a yoga body in peace? With a lot of breath and a few simple poses:
1. Forward bends to open up the lower and upper spine
2. Hero pose and variations of. Works the quads
3. Parsvottonasana: standing single leg forward bend
4. Full back bend
5. Pigeon: hip opener, everyone's fave. Get in those illiopsoas muscles and clean em out.
Lesson learned:
sing. play. dance.
