Neither do my quads, shoulders or feet. In my table of yoga comparisons to other workouts, I mentioned that in yoga your body thanks you, while in other workouts your body screams. Today my body was screaming thank you.
It's still raining in Austin. Patrick and I did the dog park/coffee run, that is our usual morning routine. On weekdays only one of us goes, but on weekends, we get quality time together! Austin has a great off-leash dog park, called Zilker. There are no fences, no mud and no stinky garbage cans! Unlike Denver, it's all grass and beauty. This morning there was a boot camp going on in one corner of the park. There were about 50 people at different stations on the grass. Some were holding huge, heavy sacks on their shoulders, sitting on the ground, laying back and then standing up again without pushing off with their hands. Others were doing the clean n jerk, then lunge, clean n jerk, then lunge. There was also a station of burpie, jump sideways across a rope, burpie, jump a rope. They all had hot bods, especially the girls. The leaders were yelling at them and they were high fiving each other. I was in awe, but came up with a couple more yoga to other workout comparisons. In other workouts, you catch your breath, in yoga you breathe. In other workouts joints are impacted. In yoga, joints are cultivated.
I missed the first 20 minutes with Vic today at Yoga Vida because I read the schedule wrong. That's okay though because it was a 90 minute class (usually I do an hour) of super scream. There was no working up to the burn point for my hip flexers, they were flaming with my first lunge. The sore muscles are catching up with me. Vic led us through some intense stuff. (I'm putting it into my own words- he used a lot more small directives and yoga terms for getting all your angles right). Each time I write "Breathe", we can assume we're holding the pose for a count of at least ten.
First, balance on one foot with other knee lifted in front. "Breathe." Hold onto the knee, then open the hip-gate so lifted knee is off to the side. "Breathe." Then extend lifted, sideward leg straight and hold toes (my body doesn't do that yet). "Breathe." Then bring knee back to center and hold extended leg out in front. Really focus on flexing the foot, like you are walking on the wall in front of you. "Breathe." Bend the knee and fly airplane arms. "Breathe." Without touching down, bring the leg through the midline until your extended leg is now "standing on the wall" behind you. "Breathe". Then reach the leg toward the sky and bring your hands to the floor in front of your grounded foot. Bring your hands to the ankle of the grounded foot. (my body doesn't do that yet) "Breathe." Flex the lifted foot and extend higher. "Breathe." Bend the grounded leg, to allow for higher lift in the skyward leg. "Breathe." [at this point my grounded foot looks like a plum and feels like a jalapeno pepper] You'd think we were done. Nope. Now reach the arm opposite your grounded leg toward the sky and rotate the hips so that instead of being squared to the ground they are squared to the wall. "Breathe." [or in my case, take the weight off the plum foot and massage it]. Keep your skyward leg extended and lower it to the back of your mat so we can all meet in a lunge. "Breathe." [or moan] Then finally take the weight off your purple, hot foot and rest in plank. Now move onto the other side [and fantasize about corpse pose.] Now that's the truth.
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