349: forrest with a friend

75 minutes: forrest yoga in the studio

tonight, a new friend from our new-ish neighborhood joined me for yoga tuesday. i got there *really* early, she got there right at 6pm. we didn't manage to practice next to each other, but i'm still glad to have had company.

credit: yoga outlet

last week, i felt so powerful after my practice and proud of myself. tonight, i felt tired. just really wiped out. the instructor, J,  read a poem about holding onto life with a clenched fist and choosing to let go and move forward with an open palm.

i tried to be active in my poses, but i got tired. i got into side angle pose and felt so strong and long and reached my arms into the bind and then my legs shook and my foot cramped and i had to come back out. this felt like a practice of fits and starts.

as i chatted with my girlfriend and J after class, she mentioned that she sees students who practice forrest yoga progress very differently than students who practice primarily vinyasa flow. i was laughing at myself for being so exhausted tonight and she said, well, you just don't know what you did yesterday that could have affected your practice.

ah! just now am i realizing that the fact that i was up until 11pm last night and didn't sleep well and ran a 4 hour meeting today might have effected my physical ability this evening.

have you had a moment like this? it certainly helped me this evening to share the experience with my friend, but also with the instructor. it feels good sometimes to know that progress comes in pieces and there are a million reasons why one could not be operating at 100%.

356: ostrich and arm balance

75 minutes: forrest yoga

last night, i went to the studio for yoga tuesday. the class i chose had my usual instructor, but she changed the format from being a vinyasa 1/2 class to forrest yoga.

forrest yoga was developed by ana forrest. the forrest yoga philosophy begins:

Forrest Yoga is renowned as an intensely physical and internally focused practice that emphasizes how to carry a transformative experience off the mat and into daily life.  The practice challenges students to access their whole being and to use Forrest Yoga as a path to finding and then cleansing the emotional and mental blocks that dictate and limit their lives.  Students cultivate an acute awareness of their own practice and life process, creating a unique and powerful opportunity for them to make practical life decisions based on their own experiences. 

 the intention, in my understanding, is to overcome adversity and build power through yoga. the intention for our class last night was self-acceptance. i had read an article in yoga journal earlier in the day that talked about slowing down and not using momentum through transitions, but to focus on proper form and then adjust. i kept that inside as my own intention. to move mindfully through transitions.

in this class, i found two new poses that i've never done (or have never been able to do) before.

first, ostrich. it's called ostrich because you look like you're putting your head in the sand.

credit: the joy of yoga

from warrior 2, you turn to face your open side. then, interlace the fingers behind you and being careful not to stick you butt out for balance, lean into a forward bend and let the arms pull away. the tricky part is staying balanced over your legs and not tipping forward or back. amazing.

second, an arm balance.

starting again in warrior 2, plant your hands on the open side like you would in plank pose. then, lean into the hands like pulling into plank position. on the first side, i had to stay here. but on the second side, i was able to balance on my left hand and right foot and grab my left foot with my right hand and balance for a moment or two.

my first arm balance. i am so proud of myself right now!

am/pm practice

monday afternoon, i remember that i had signed up to do a 21 day yoga challenge through yoga journal. when i first read about it in the magazine, the page hadn't been updated yet and kept telling me that the program ended last december. eventually, it updated and i somehow signed up.

but i didn't get the first workout until around 3pm. too late for me to practice. so, i thought, oh, i'll just do all the workouts one day behind. no problem! however, at 5:30am the next morning when it failed to load after repeated attempts (and my technology solving skills are not the best at that time of day) i gave up and did a random dvd from the shelf.

and then i realized that we had on-site fitness that evening. i started my day with a fairly vigorous practice and ended with a more relaxing practice. we have an instructor who just received her certification and i really liked how she talked us into each pose and then held us there.

i find that holding a pose for longer breaths takes my focus somewhere different. i'm not trying to keep up, i'm trying to finesse my form. and it's exhausting! chair pose for 8 breaths is some serious business.

i actually set my alarm to get up this morning, but i felt kind of sore and rather than push it to try for a video that won't load, i chose to rest.

rested.

yoga tuesday: relaxing the shoulders

V, my older daughter, at times, struggles to figure out ways to calm herself down in the face of whatever it is (usually not getting what she wants). each evening, we take deep breaths together and recently we started connecting motion with our breath. we take 5 deep breaths in and 5 deep breaths out. we breath in when our arms go up and out as our arms come back to our sides. for the last one, we bring our hands to pray position before hopping into bed for books.

this is great for evening, but i wondered if the yoga instructor for the class i attended tonight had any suggestions. she has a little girl who will be 3 in a couple of months. she was very thoughtful with me and suggested doing many things that we already do- use my breath as a model, use the abc yoga deck, intersperse activity with periods of rest. she also suggested bringing her to family yoga. it might be a good way to give her more tools to put in her toolbox for when she's on her own. having the muscle memory could really help.

the only trouble is that it's offered once a month. good luck remembering when that is...

after our chat, class got started and we mainly focused on moving our shoulders away from our ears. each pose and each series of motions had a component of drawing away and back with the intention of relaxing instead of gripping or forcing.

somewhere in the middle, we did a series over and over, each of us following our own breath, moving between warrior 2, reverse warrior, triangle, side angle and back to warrior 2. it was kind of amazing. more like dancing than yoga.

i'm going to try it with V one of these days. i think she'll really like the rhythm of the flow.

yoga tuesdays

75 minutes - vinyasa 1/2
30 minutes - yoga for core strength

tuesday is officially my day to go to the yoga studio. and, they even offer 2 choices on tuesday nights- a level 1/2 vinyasa class or the full primary series. this week, i chose the vinyasa class.

we flowed in and out of poses, but kept coming back to side plank. first, with a knee on the ground, then the full side plank, then lifting one leg, then binding the lifted leg with the same side arm. i nearly toppled over several times, but so did everyone else. it was a supportive and fun kind of class.

this morning, i did a little practice i found somewhere on the internet. i didn't keep the page, but just wrote down the series. (i think i meant to print it, but the internet failed me.) i added a little here and there, but i understand why they called it yoga for core strength:

1. cat/cow
2. hand/knee balance (from table, lift opposite arm and leg)
3. down dog
4. plank
5. side plank
6. high lunge
7. half moon pose
8. chair pose
9. eagle pose
10. boat pose

i will say, i wish i'd look ahead a little because it makes much more sense to come into half moon pose from the high lunge. i figured it out on the second side and had to go backwards to get the first side. also, i would add one more pose at the end to counter the boat pose. i chose cobbler's pose. a seated forward bend would work, too.

happy yoga tuesday!