Twelve Days of Yoga

With the last twelve days of yoga completed, for a total of 20 days in a row, I invite you to get into that downward Rudolph spirit and sing along with me!

[Because I, like most women, have struggled to appreciate my body, the song will be about the ways my blessed body serves me. After so many years of self inflicted verbal abuse, the ol' bod deserves a little appreciation.]

Here we go... A ONE, TWO! A ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!

On the twelfth day of yoga, my body gave to me...

12 drips of sweat [12]
11 hours of sleep [11] 
10 prayer twists [10]
9 chaturangas [9]
8 metaphors [8]
7 new inversions [7] 
6 happy babies [6] 
5 suuupermaaaans! [5] 
 4 drinks detoxed [4]  
3 ujjayi breaths [3]
2 peddling legs [2]
and a really good session of corpse pose! [1]

[12] I had stopped bringing a towel to the 80+ degree room. My body had adjusted (?) and was no longer creating a slip n slide of sweat on my mat. Today was a different story. I never found out if the heat was turned up, or if it was just my body giving me a thorough cleanse. Some gals in the changing room thought it may have been the extreme humidity in Austin. With temperatures in the 70s and on and off gray drizzle, we were walking through the inside of a blow up mattress all day long. Being drenched from head to toe, and the high five reception from an also drenched post-run Patrick, were the perfect ways to complete this goal. Maybe I'm overcoming my adult ADD after all!

[11] The Robert Earl Keen concert, 1am bedtime the night before, wine and margaritas may have pushed me to this state of slumber. I had to talk myself to class today, and thank the supreme being I did. The yoga helped me through the self-inflicted body trauma.

[10] Vic loves to make us twist. "Rinse the organs" he says.

We added a prayer twist to chair pose: bring hands to prayer in front of the heart. Twist the upper body and hook opposite elbow outside opposite knee.

We added a prayer twist to high lunge: bring hands to prayer in front of the heart. Twist the upper body and hook opposite elbow outside opposite knee.

We added a twist to eagle pose: Twist the upper body and hook opposite elbow outside opposite knee.We even did eagle pose while laying on our backs and took the upper and lower body in opposite directions!

My organs are all wrung out! 

[9] Today's instructor was referred to in a prior blog as "plank loving." She loves to get us in the push up position and torture us there. Chaturanga is basically the yoga term for push-up, but you don't make it all the way back up. You do the lowering part, but before you reach the ground, you extend your head to the sky, arch your back and straighten your arms to come into upward facing dog. Or, if you're in Carley's class, you hover there while she describes what each part of your body, head to toe, should be doing.

[8] Yoga instruction is filled with metaphors. They help paint a picture; they give a feeling that literal descriptions can't capture. Since it's been raining and gray in Austin (and SUNNY in Portland!) the instructor told us to take on the energy of water in our practice. To be strong and rigid as in a river carving a canyon, as well as soft and sensitive, like a drop of dew in the petal of a flower. It made me think of other metaphors I've heard in my time on the mat. Your upper body is the clouds and your lower body is the rain. Be the moon, reflect light. Let your turtle neck extend from its shell. You are fogging up a window with your breath. You are sitting on a tiny stool. Hold a moon beam. Your heart is shining to the sky.

[7] Inversions are any pose that requires your heart to pump in a direction opposite its usual gravitational pull. (Head below the heart, legs above the heart...) Here's one I learned today that you shouldn't try at home: Get into downward facing dog, with heels brushing the wall. Then walk the feet up the wall. Hold there with feet on the wall. Then lift each leg. Walk back down the wall. Now get in down dog again, this time with hands closer to feet. Walk the feet up the wall and lift each leg again. That's how we work our way into handstands! We also spent two minutes in headstand and did corpse pose with butt snugged up to the wall and legs up, at a 90 degree angle with the floor. The instructor says he does this when he travels, to prevent blood pooling in the feet and ankles.

[6] Happy baby pose is when you lay on your back with your knees curled into your body, and spread to the sides. You grab the bottoms of your feet and hold onto them. Today, we were shown how to do it from a seated position. So your butt turns into the bottom of a Weeble Wobble. Unlike Weebles, I wobble and I do fall down. 

[5] Eased on into this pose today- meaning, I can tell my back is stronger. It's my second favorite pose, after corpse. My friend, Therese, has a picture like this with photo-shopped clouds around her and a cape flying behind her.]

Patrick laughed really hard when I asked him to take this picture. We had to take a few shots before we got one that made me look like a hero.

[4] Endured some waves of nausea today, as I had some wine and margaritas last night. I could tell the sweat was partly alcohol. We saw singer/songwriter, Matt the Electrician, on the University of Texas campus. They have a tiny little venue called the Cactus Cafe that's brought some big names. He sang "Rainbow Connection" in honor of the new Muppets movie. I got a little teary eyed.

[3] Ujjayi is when you breathe, deliberately with heat, in and out of your nose. Like you are trying to fog up a window. In a class of people doing ujjayi breath, it sounds really loud. I've always found the most challenge with the breathing part of yoga. It didn't feel natural to breath in time to the movement of my body. I would hold my breath during challenging parts instead of breathing through them. Today, I may have had my best breath yet- breathed into challenging poses way more than 3 times.

[2] Patrick needed the car today, so I figured out a bike route to yoga. Took me less time to bike than drive! I wasn't sure how to get through the park and across the river, so I asked a fellow cyclist if I could follow him. Turns out, he was from Portland! Thank you bicycle angels for sending me a familiar guide and giving my legs a head start on yoga!

[1] It's true. The instructor had us lay in corpse for like twelve minutes. Every muscle relaxed, melted into the floor, no movement and a still mind. The room was dark and she had this accordion-like instrument going while she belted oooohhhhms of various intonation. It's sounds strange but it was kinda soothing. I'm sure it's a practice from ancient times to help with a still mind. There was so much sound to focus on, I had no room for other thoughts. Still mind, and therefore a still body. If you think it sounds easy, YOU try it.