DesertStandard

I have been on a pretty good health kick for a few months now. I say pretty good as I still have a few vices some of which I need to reduce further and others that I need to eliminate all together. Nevertheless I had been lifting weights at the gym which transitioned into a six month Yoga intensive of which I am currently in the middle of month 2.

One of the highlights of this Yoga intensive is the Tuesday Ashtanga class with Michelle Hegmon. This class is close to 2 hours long and requires a fair level of knowledge and technique as the poses can be challenging. Also if you don’t understand some of the intricacies of how to hold them the benefit is greatly reduced. Michelle is also a really neat woman. She is all of five feet tall and walks with the air of a 7 year old ready to play in the park. Her teaching style is very playful and keeps you at ease even when you barely have your breath and are somewhat concerned if you will be able to walk right after class.

Last nights class was only my third one with her and after yesterdays adventure in the working world I was ready to unwind. To start the class off she tells a story about Boulder, CO:

“Boulder is one of the centers of Buddist thought in the US,” she starts, “but Boulder also likes to take itself very seriously.”

I did all I could do to keep from laughing outloud as my college years came rushing back through my thoughts.

She continues telling the story of how a preeminent Buddist monk made a trip from China with a number of apprentices. “During one of the monks speeches,” she recalled “all of these very enthusiastic Boulderites crowded around the monk taking notes with painstaking effort as his English was very crude. As this is happening I turn to the back of the room where all of the apprentices are standing and to my surprise find them giggling and laughing, leaning against the wall, and blowing bubbles with the newly discovered gift of chewing gum. That moment sticks with me as a reminder that taking life too seriously can get in the way of living it; so relax, smile, and have fun.”

So the question is how can you relax, smile, and have fun today?

The plan was to go and see ol’ Billy Clinton talk at ASU Gammage after youth soccer was done but I was running late and the rest of my party was way out of position, so I made yoga instead. I was excited about this anyway as I haven’t been going enough since my sister was in town all week. I have also been beating myself up a little with running and need to workout.

Josh is a new teacher and his style is very philosophical and meditative. I am pretty sure he has had a lot of Anusara training which is what they teach at Yoga Village, where I first got into Yoga. This style is less concerned with creating a Flow (that is akin to aerobics), and more about each pose and making sure you are in them fully. This means you are physically standing in that pose but also that your thoughts are in the pose as well.

Before class started I made sure to introduce myself to two strangers as a pseudo new rule of mine where I am trying to talk to as many people each day as I can. I met Nicole who wasn’t overly talkative but nice enough. Then I talked with Jackie who was much more comfortable and we talked about coaching youth teams. I mentioned the soccer league I was helping with and she talked about the Boys and Girls Club teams she worked with for basketball. She is also relatively new to Innervision and we talked about a few of the different classes we go to. I told her that Saturday morning at 730am is really good cause it gets you awake and productive for the rest of the day.

At the start of class Josh had each of us introduce who we are and something about ourselves. I mentioned that I just got done coaching soccer with 6 year olds and got a few comments. Everyone else seems pretty cool and we got started.

Josh likes to start his Level 1-2 classes lying on your back which is just a different way from most classes. We started by lifting the left leg straight up and then taking it out to the side and then bringing it back to center. The idea is to get familiar with how your hip joint rotates in the socket and to get that warmed up. Then we did the right leg in the same fashion for a few repetitions.

After that we started to move into the familiar sequence of Down Dog and Plank and Chaturanga, but Josh likes to throw all types of variation in and doesn’t let you fall into the repetitive Flow. This makes it more challenging because you lose sense of time and have to fight off the anxiety of not knowing how much longer the class is.

I am having some tightness in my right knee behind the kneecap which I guess is what they call Runner’s Knee. This is sucky as it gets really tight at various points in the session, enough to take me out of a few poses even when I have my right leg lifted off of the ground. From what I am reading it sounds like this is due to an Imbalance of my Quadriceps and I think its because my inner quads are slightly underdeveloped. I will work on a few quadriceps exercises to get things into shape, but it sounds like I need to take it easy on the running for a little while.

After class I ran into Reagan at the Sprouts right next door. We talked about going to Innervision a bit and how we are both quitting our regular gyms to just do yoga. Nice enough young woman.

Jumped my butt out of bed at 730 to get to the morning yoga. The intention was to get an early enough class to make the Team in Training information meeting at 1030. To the side I was interested in trying the new mat I had just received in the mail the day before. I finally got up at 7ish and hurried myself out the door.

This was a Power class with one of the owners at Innervision, Aaron. Power classes are a bit more advanced and definitly are a work out. Today we were tortured with a pose I have only recently seen a lot of: the Bear pose.

Bear pose is a toning pose, there is pretty much no stretching going on in this one. Start off in Downward Dog and move your shoulders to the top of a pushup. Let your knees come to one inch of the floor and let your back curve by tilting your tailbone up. Now hold that.

We were put into this one at least 15 times during this class. As we progressed laughter came from various aspects of the room when the pose was mentioned. To make it more interesting we alternated lifting each leg for 3-5 breaths.

The other move that we did was completely new to me and is just a way of getting to Crecent pose but is worth mentioning. Instead of coming up to Crecent from a lunge we went to it from standing.

First stand stright up and put all weight into your left leg. Raise the right knee till the thigh is perpendicular and hold it there for a breath. The step the right leg to the back of the mat and stand on its toes. Take you arms down to you hips but keep them straight and let the palms face in. After a breath bring them up above your head.

This move was used as much as the Bear pose and really changed the perspective of the flow. I felt much lighter and open with the move than the grounded feel I get from coming into Crecent via a Lunge. This is not to say that I prefer one over the other but I appreciate the differences that the moves give to me.

The new mat did well but I have to get a yoga towel to put on it while I sweat all over during class. Now I have to find a cheap one…

Didnt get into work till late today as the furnace was finally fixed. Missed the Ashtanga at 610pm but saw that there was a Level 1-2 at 730pm so I went to that. I was worried that it might be too late and that I wouldnt be able to get to sleep till midnight or later, but I had taken Monday off due to hangover and broken toes so I had to go.

Did I mention that my toes are broken? Well maybe not broken but they really did hurt bad on Monday after soccer from Sunday. I figured out this morning that the reason the left one was pretty much healed but my right one was it total pain was because the blister under the right big toenail was not yet popped.  The one on the left had popped on Sunday after playing. So I had to lance it a few times today, even at work, which was gross but absolutely necessary.

I got to the studio a bit early which is always better than coming in after class starts, which a few people didnt mind doing. Maredith was the teacher and while I think she could talk a bit less I really enjoy her class as her enthusiasm is contageous.

I felt pretty good despite not being able to feel the top of my big toes and being very sore still from soccer on Sunday. We did a couple of interesting balance moves which I was able to pull off.

Met Kelly who had just been snowboarding to Solitude up in Park City. She is married and very cool so we talked on our way out to the parking lot.

Two days in a row! Third class in four days! Getting close to starting a trend here…

This is a 2 hour class focused around a much more technical process. Not as redundant or repetative as Bikram. This is with a substitute teacher (whose name escape me) who had just been to a seminar of some such at Estes Park. She names of a few names that I mostly dont recognize, but John Friend’s name pops up and takes me back a few years.

There is a constant reminder of how many years it has been since my practice at Yoga Village. Has it really been since 2004? Thats only 4 years, really just a blink of an eye…

Definitly need to get a thicker mat and towel of some sort.

For anyone who knows me they know that I come up with new trends and latch onto them fanatically. Sometimes this lasts a while and sometimes it fades quickly. I made it for 2.5 months with my last workout routine and had good returns. Now I am focused on Yoga primarily to get my flexibility back but also to focus back on who I am and what I am capable of.

With weight lifting you show yourself how much weight you can lift. The boost that you get from lifting more than you ever have before is a good one, but it is temporary. The main problem is that getting injured is very common.

With Yoga you are stretching but there are also very powerful poses that require balance and power to complete succesfully. Many people confuse it as being an exercise that only works on stretching, but if you have ever seen me after a class, and see how drenched I am with sweat, you would change your tune right away.

Todays class was with Jeff again, but this was a much more challenging class than the Level 1-2 from Saturday. Todays focus was on the idea of opposites. Meaning that if you are focused on Anger you need to find compassion, jealousy needs to find trust and compassion. Jeff’s example of how this is bad for us is all the reports we have yearly on Depression versus the very few done on Joy. Also pointed out is our Department of War, but no Department of Peace.

Went to my first yoga class in years, and had a lot of fun. The studio is located a few miles from my home and I will eventually start walking/running there for classes. Its also right next to the Sprouts Grociery store so it is great for keeping lots of fresh fruit and vegetables in the house.

I was driven there by a few factors:

1. Current relationship stress
2. Soreness/Tiring of current weight lifting program
3. Rememberance of how great yoga made me feel in the past

This class is called ‘Level 1-2′ and is intended for all levels. The teacher’s name is Jeff and he is a part owner. We started at 9am which is a funny time on a Saturday to get up and go workout but that was another reason why I wanted to go. The coincidence with New Years just a few days before had a lot to do with this as well.

I have been working out at the Gym for a few months on a new workout program and had seen great results. The problem is that I am not interested in being all muscle bound with no flexibility. The lifting includs a lot of squats so my back and legs had gotten very strong and I have also started running again, which has been a blast now that I can keep my knees from crushing each other. Now I needed something to get my flexibility back and also give me more than just knowing how much I can lift.

The class starts with my phone alarm going off, which happen to sound like church bells. Jeff found it somewhat appropriate while I was red in the face with embarassment trying to shut it off. We start with some call and response which is the funniest call and response I have ever had. Something about a Paddle and rhymes, quite a good mental exercise for getting into the moment and forgetting all the rules we construct around our lives.

The physical aspect of the class is done very well but what makes Jeff such a great teacher is the philosophy that he teaches during the class. For this class we focus on finding something in our lives that is beyond ripe and needs to be pulled from our tree and allow it to act a fertilizer for the next step of life. My thoughts went to the current relationship that wasnt really going anywhere at the moment, and I thought that was because the relationship was done or maybe my perception of it needed to be changed. Either way the mental exercise went very well with the yoga practice.

There is some chanting in the class and at this time I am not participating. I may in the future but its a comfort thing as well as a realization that this is borrowed culture without the actual culture. This is an ongoing challenge that I will be analyzing.