One Year Of Yoga

Today we had a substitute teacher and she really worked us hard. It was almost like she was mad that she had agreed to teach the class and she was taking it out on us. At the end of class when most teachers say “thank you for coming and allowing me to guide you through your practice”…. She just said “Namaste” and left. I think it was still a good class and she had us doing balancing poses against the wall. It was interesting and different. It’s always fun to try new things and new ways of doing things.

Today’s class was 2 hours long. Very good balance of Vinyasa and some restorative poses at the end of class. A perfect way to start the New Year! I noticed my arm seems to be feeling better today which is good. I have been modifying some of my poses and not holding my arm up as high in warrior pose.

Today a friend of mine from Colorado was in town, so we went to this class together. It is always fun to practice with a friend. I realized how much tighter my left hip is than my right. Good flow between poses. Another student in class told the teacher she has a pain in her hand…I wanted to talk to her about it since I had the same pain when I started my experiment. I wanted to tell her it eventually goes away with regular practice. I hope she sticks with it.

On my way to class today I ran into an old schoolmate (from gradeschool) on the streetcar. He said, “We used to ride the school bus together and now we ride the Streetcar.” It’s fun seeing old friends. The class was good and I like the instructor because she really watches everyone to make sure they are doing the poses correctly. I feel like my hips have been much tighter lately. Sort of like taking 3 steps forward and 2 steps back in my yoga practice. This is probably correlated to stress factors. It’s interesting how our bodies are in a perpetual state of change.

Ganga White and Tracey Rich Workshop at Yoga in the Pearl, Portland, OR.   They discussed how subtle changes in your body positions and keeping the energy flowing can deepen your practice.  Ganga suggested a version of the seated twist in which you sit on your foot.  This was interesting and fun to try, since I had never heard or seen that before.  He also talked about keeping your toes flexed to keep the energy flowing in different standing positions.