One Year Of Yoga

Today’s class was great. The instructor seemed to explain things in more detail this time and assisted people deeper into the poses. I learned that my hands can go higher when I do reverse Namaste. Also, I’m not sure how many times I’ve heard this, but it finally clicked today, that when stretching in a forward bend you are supposed to engage the muscle you are stretching to protect it from injury. It seems to actually help you stretch deeper too. I knew this from teaching Bikram poses, I just hadn’t applied the same rules to the poses common in other disciplines of yoga.

Before class started, I went to go to the bathroom and experienced an opportunity to practice “being in the moment”.  One of the bathrooms was unlocked and when I opened the door, the woman inside had forgotten to lock it.  Luckily she was just washing her hands.  She said “come in, I’m almost done here”, and I couldn’t think of an excuse to wait outside, so I went in.   She told me about her yoga class that she just finished and how much she liked the teacher.  She was very nice and I was happy to meet her.  The old me would have been hurrying to get back to my mat before class started.  I would not have taken the time to listen and I’d be looking for another bathroom.  Practicing “living in the moment”, I exhaled, cherished the fact that we as humans have the ability to connect with others, and by connecting with this person I would, at most, be a few minutes late to class.  My mat was already in the room, so I could easily sneak in and join class.  As it turned out, I entered just as they were finishing a chant, which I didn’t know anyway.  Good timing!

Great Ashtanga class! Only 5 students, so we each got a lot of individual attention. This doesn’t happen very often. It was great! We attempted some advanced postures that I’ve never done before, which was fun.