BOOT CAMP--Day 5-- My First Yoga Experience?

It’s a

question

of

balance?!!?

Yes, we are back to my balance issue. This morning I found out that good balance is a necessity to doing yoga properly. Of course, the teacher did point out that the floor we are on (which is a semi- hard cushion matted floor- ideal for gymnastics ) is making it harder to balance than a normal situation where quite often there’s a hard wooden floor and only your exercise mat for cushion. Well, at least there was a cushion if I fell.

Before we began, the teacher and a fellow class member suggested that I remove my shoes and socks. “It prevents you from sliding.” I was told. Okay, I remove my socks, and before I know it we were imitating furniture and animals. It was table position, then cat position, and dog position…cat, dog, table, cat, dog, cat, table. It was a cat and dog fight around a table! LOL! Oh my!

Somehow we ended up in a warrior position of which there are three different variations. Warrior—1, 2, and 3 (one pose shown with ocean background) with certain smaller variations all were basically a lunge position with arms out. I was starting to notice my balances issues by this point. From here on out, and most of the class I found myself tittering to stay upright. We moved on to a great deal of other positions. The order of these positions I couldn’t remember because all of them seemed to be flowing into each other, and I was struggling to figure out just where each part of my body was supposed to be in each position. Some of the positions were called names like; triangle(shown in photo at top), tree, wave, upward dog, downward dog, swan dive, the splits, and the pigeon. Gee, all we are missing were the lions and tigers! Oh, my!

The tree position (shown at left) proved just how lousy my balance was. You start by standing upright with feet together and your hands at the “center” (in prayer at chest height). From there you TRY to put the bottom of one foot against the thigh of your other leg while still maintaining an upright position. Then once you have achieved that you reach you arms up towards the ceiling while looking up at your hands. Okay, then you slowly lower the one leg and repeat it on the other side. Here I am still struggling to get my first foot against my thigh; while the rest of the class seems to stream on by. Magnificent trees up against my attempt at a bush?

The pigeon? Don't ask me where they got the idea to call this position after a bird. I couldn't see any resemblance but then again my form was so BAD I was probably the ultimate garbage pigeon. In this position your hands are on the floor shoulder width apart, one leg is stretched out back behind you on the floor, and the other leg is folded across in front of the other leg with the front calf against the floor. Owwww! But wait there was more to this position... We go from regular pigeon to SCREAMING pigeon. You got to be kidding! Any position that starts with SCREAMING when my muscles are all ready SCREAMING can not be a good thing. (photo-outline of the SCREAMING pigeon pose.)

The SPLITS!??!? Here I ended up slipping on the exercise mat, and twisted my ankle a bit. After that I took a bit of care with trying this position. The teacher was amazing and was completely in the splits---Oh, to be that young and limber again! But no worries though, my ankles are doing fine now in the 3-1/4 “heels I’m wearing at work. Yes, I can wear high heels like these and stay balanced, and walk; but I can balance my own body for half of the yoga positions this morning. Boggles the mind!

Eventually, we worked our way into a plow position. Gee, I think I would need a backhoe to plow my butt off of the floor by this point. I couldn’t seem to manage to swing my legs together, over my head, and pull my behind off the floor at the same time. You were supposed to go on and support your back with your hands and elbows. This position was similar to a head stand which I haven’t attempted since I was in elementary school. I just laid there and watched every else do it.

Lastly, we did what I can only refer to as a Yoga Ball. You hug your knees to your chest and then you concentrate on squeezing every muscle from your toes to scrunching your face. After you do that you lay flat on your back arms wide, and go through and relax every muscle. AWwwwwww! I felt pretty good, surprisingly.