Thursday, November 3, 2011

Puuuuurfect Yoga Practice

I've made myself a list of goals for this year. It's a list of the things that I've wanted to see or do or learn that I've never had the time for. You know, the things that you just keep putting in the some day pile. For example, one of the things on my list is learning to french braid. I know it may seem kind of silly but I have always wanted to be able to french braid. I can still remember being a little girl getting so excited when my older sister Leigh would french braid my hair. Sitting in front of my big sister on the living room floor having her braid my hair and talking are some of my very special memories of our relationship. I thought she was so cool and I always felt so pretty with my hair french braided :) It's been one of those things that I have always wanted to do but have never taken the time to sit down to learn. Well, finally, I sat down turned on a utube video and am happy to say learned to french braid. Isn't utube awesome! This is how I tie Nick's neck tie's too :) One of my other to do's is to attend a yoga class at least once per week while we are here. I think it's important to take time for myself to do some exercise that is less vigorous and more balancing and I also want to continue to improve and grow as a yoga instructor. I think a great way to do this is to expose myself to as many different instructors and styles of classes as possible. To date I have been drawn toward the Vinyasa or Power Yoga classes because they are strongly rooted to the physical. I have a difficult time sitting quietly and getting out of my own head. So this morning I had planned to attend a power yoga class at one of the gyms I work at. A great perk of working at so many gyms is that you get to enjoy the classes for free :) When I sat down at the top of my mat in preparation for the class the instructor welcomed us and said that we were going to focus on Ujjayi breathing and meditation for the first half of the class. What???? I thought this was Power Yoga. She explained that she wanted us to be able to learn to focus on the breath during our vigorous Power Yoga class to improve the quality of our practice . We sat in a fire log posture for 20-minutes focusing on breathing and creating the sound of the ocean in our throats. My feet were asleep, my nose was itchy, my mind was running in circles thinking of all the cool things I had planned to do in the afternoon. My head was everywhere but on my mat and focused on my practice. I was compassionate with myself and kept trying to come back but needless to say, it was a very challenging morning for me. The instructor was excellent and I know there are many things that I can learn from her so I will be back. I plan to make Thursday mornings a regular class for me. I have also decided that I will start doing 20-minutes of my own practice at home each day. In the past it has proven to be a challenge because there are so many distractions at home. The biggest of which are my cats Pumpkin, Gizmo and Maggie. As soon as I put my mat down they swarm me. Pumpkin loves to lie underneath me on her back in the hopes of getting a belly rub. Gizmo squacks at me from the coffee table and Maggie loves to drag her bum across my yoga mat. Yuck! Seriously, it's a magnet for her.
I think I've got a plan to overcome these challenges. I am going to include them in my practice. I thought I was being original but there are dedicated websites to yoga for cats www.yogakitty.com is just one example that I checked out. It is very cute. So I decided to try some of the Asanas with the girls and Nick played photographer; Warrior III (Virabhadrasana III) with Gizmo, Boat Pose (Paripurna Navasana) with Pumpkin and Tree Pose (Vrksasana) with Maggie. As you can see Maggie has difficulty focusing during yoga too :)

2 comments:

  1. Animals love yoga! I think it's a sign that the energy you put forth in yoga practice is calm/controlled which animals respond to, and we obviously don't carry over in our regular day! Darcy and the cats love to assist in my yoga practice too, so I definitely understand the challenges. I love your warrior 3 with pumpkin. I'm inspired too, and I definitely think I can make 20min a day dedicated to my yoga practice. Thanks for teh inspiration! Miss you.

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  2. SO funny that they do that!!
    Bo, my crazy little black cat tends to jump over the step with me when I'm preparing my class...
    or she just goes and sit somewhere in the middle of the room blocking teh space when I wanna try some turn for aerobics :p
    So I just think they love movement... and the energy you have when you are doing something you love :)
    Big cuddle xxx

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