Yoga with Abbie

I haven’t been to a yoga class since returning from vacation, but have been doing a home practice pretty consistently.  What I have been doing a lot of is cycling.  I’ve been trying to do some yoga after each ride for a few reasons – it helps me stretch out and release tension and tightness, while also reminding me of the importance of breathing – smoothly, calmly, deeply and nourishingly.

Less than 2 weeks ago, I bought a road bike and signed up for a metric century ride (that is 65 miles), that was at the time less than a month away.  I now have two and a half weeks until ride day (note, I’m not calling this a race).  My longest ride on this new bike is 32 flat miles, while the route consists of 2700 feet of climbing – mostly in 3 hills that start at mile 40.

Where yoga has been coming in – I’ve been doing some of the daily Yoga Journal videos for their 21 day challenge, but some days I’m finding their practice a little more challenging  than what I want for a rest day when I’m not cycling or for a post ride practice.  I’ve been modifying the poses and since it is only a 30 minute practice – spending at least another 30 minutes doing yin poses.

Where yoga needs to come in – BREATH CONTROL.  As I start up a hill while cycling, especially one I’ve never been up so the unknowns of length and steepness are daunting mysteries to me, I tend to get tense and either hold my breath or start taking more shallow breaths.  What I quickly learned, is that this is a recipe for a small disaster – as I limit the breath and get tense I also limit the ease at which my body is working, making my legs burn, my chest hurt and resulting in white knuckled grasping of the bars and gasping for air when it really isn’t necessary – because I’m not climbing any huge hills on the road bike yet.  The plan is to start the next few bike rides with a couple of breathing exercises so I can enter the ride in a more relaxed state, and hopefully maintain that relaxation.

With so much mountain biking and road biking in the last couple weeks, getting at least 30 minutes (and last Friday as much as 100 minutes) of yin yoga most days has been a gift to my body. I haven’t been sore, I’ve been completely relaxed when it’s time for bed and I recognize those spots that need a little more opening.  Hello hips in full lizard pose!

 

I was going to begin teaching a workplace yoga class on Tuesday after returning from vacation.  The challenges of this:

1. Besides me, there are two people regularly in the office (so I invited people from the company we share office space with)
2. One of them has all kinds of fun medical / orthopedic types of issues – but is familiar with yoga
3. It would take away from my bike rides
4. Using touch to correct a co-workers form in a pose could be tricky
5. There would be no props, so I’d need to be very aware of pose selection

Why these potential challenges have turned out to be of no concern – because of scheduling constraints, nobody has wanted to participate in this class.  This has given me the opportunity to continue to use Tuesday’s for bike rides, but has restricted my ability to practice teach.  I’m hopeful that as schedules change, I’ll be able to encourage participation, I know that as the time changes and darkness comes earlier, I’ll be more eager to teach at this time since I won’t be cycling.

I thought that after a week of yoga training, a few days of work and then heading into vacation, that I would look forward to practicing yoga on vacation.  I didn’t have to worry about a schedule, I would have beautiful, tropical scenery to look at, there would be no time  constraints, etc, etc, etc….

What actually happened is…not much!  I was in such need of relaxation that I didn’t want to do anything that wasn’t strictly vacation-esque.  What this means is that the extent of my yoga didn’t go much beyond hanging out in bow pose while snorkeling and watching turtles.  One night (a couple of days after I sprained my ankle) I was starting to get antsy from lack of activity, but was also feeling tired.  So I laid down in bed and relaxed into some yin poses until I fell soundly asleep.

Initially I was disappointed in my lack of practice, but then accepted that practicing what felt right, even if it was limited, was good – I got to enjoy a fantastic vacation and was completely refreshed at the end of vacation.

1. My arms need strengthened
2. My left leg does more than its fair share of work to compensate for the right knee that is missing lots of cartilage
3. I can make it feel like my breath is moving to various parts of my body
4. My shoulders really are constantly tense and in need of relaxing
5. Listening to a guided meditation makes sitting still easier and wiggling more permissible
6. My right hip is higher than my left
7. My left shoulder is higher than my right
8. Improving my body for yoga and life will be a life long process
9. A week of yoga can do wonders for my posture – more than years of parental nagging
10. I may not be the skinniest, most flexible, youngest, most experienced or most “yogi looking” teacher, but I will be the best, and safest teacher I can be!

Monday through Sunday, 7:30 am – 5:30 pm (plus homework)…The energy, enthusiasm of instructors, inspiration from fellow students and necessary adrenaline made the week very exciting and challenging.  It also made going back to the routine of my paying job today seem dull and exhaustion began to set in.

The amount of knowledge I gained is incredible and there is still so much to learn and get familiar with.  I suspect this will come with more training, practice teaching and working with a variety of body types and I look forward to it all.

I started this training thinking that I wanted to concentrate solely on Yin and Restorative classes as my teaching focus, but this week showed me that I understand the flow poses much more deeply than I would have expected and that my sense of timing works well with this type of class.

Of course, there are plenty of things for me to improve on – cuing consistently through challenging poses, varying the phrases I use and maybe most importantly making sure that the instructions I am saying match my breath so as not to confuse my students.

I’m now half way through the 200 hour program, having completed the Yin training in July.  Between now and October, which starts the Level 2 training class, I’ll be practicing teaching regularly and trying to identify what I want to do for my 20 hour project – there are so many interesting choices I know it will be a struggle to decide.  I’ll also be using this blog to track my progress and share my insights as I get back to a more regular practice as a student and grow as a teacher.