I was real close to skipping working out yesterday. I wasn’t as productive as I would have liked to have been and the temptation was to keep working and just blow off working out. It was a strong temptation, but in the end I opted to go workout. 🙂

The yoga class starts at 6:00pm and there wasn’t time to do anything treadmill, or any other activity before class. The class fills up very fast, so you want to make sure you get a place by getting there early. 15 minutes before the start of class and the room was nearly full. I laid out my mat and then went to ask Bliss, our instructor a question.

On April 10th, she’s teaching a class about integrating yoga into your daily life. In it, she’s going to create two 10 minute routines and a 30 minute routine. The longer routine is for when you start your day and the shorter 10 minutes ones are for throughout the day when you need a boost of energy, etc. It sounds very exciting and I would REALLY like to attend, but NPUG has it’s regular meeting on that day and I won’t be able to attend. I asked Bliss if she would be teaching this class anywhere else and unfortunately she said she didn’t. She did say that the topic would probably come up again in a few months, so at least there’s hope for me down the road. I went back to the mat and relaxed for about 10 minutes until class started.

Bliss announced at the start of class that she had just returned from an instructor’s workshop where they focused on the belly and everyone let out a collective “uh oh” and then we all laughed. Class was tough, especially on the stomach, but it wasn’t as tough as some of them have been. Maybe I’m getting better? I do notice that my stretches are going deeper and that I’m closer to my toes that I’ve ever been.

One interesting, yet odd thing happened towards the end. We were doing a pose and I was getting tired of holding it. I’m panting like a dog in heat and Bliss is saying “… and breathe…”. She saying that was should just be relaxed and breathing as deeply as if we were lying down resting. I’m taking many shallow breaths because I physically can’t breathe any deeper. Then all of a sudden, I felt myself give. It felt as if I had been hanging onto a ledge and just let go. I was relaxed, yet my pose was solid as a rock. I felt like I could have held that position all day. Breathing became much easier too. It happened a second time in one of our final poses. That pose is typically very uncomfortable and hard to hold, but again it felt like I just let go and it became very easy. I don’t know what this means, but I certainly hope to reach that place again.