Tuesday 17th January, 12.30pm class taught by Nicky
Quite ridiculously, the 'phone rang this morning just before 7am; I jumped out of bed to answer it, and aaaaarggggghhhh, my back!!!! Could barely get down the stairs, it was so painful. Really, really excellent things must be happening to my spine, I'm sure of it! This can ONLY be positive, right? Ha, yes I'm still quite convinced that it's all good, and bizarrely, am feeling very, very happy right now! Don't exactly know why, but I'm sure it's to do with this challenge. I'm just really enjoying it, and looking forward to getting in for tomorrow's class already - although it's another 9.30am: traffic, please play nicely.
Halfway through now; have lost precisely no weight whatsoever, facial obesity shows no signs of abating, but my muscles are definitely feeling stronger, and they're currently feeling quite tired, in that relaxed, warm kind of way that only people who've just done fifteen consecutive days of sweaty yoga can understand and deserve: if that's not you, then I'm sorry but I can provide no fuller description because you just haven't earned it!
Didn't quite know how class would go today, but my back didn't feel too bad once I got in there. Still steering clear of the sit-ups and getting into postures in a bit more of a careful bent-knees manner, but apart from that felt fine. In fact, better than fine. Felt like my brain was completely unengaged and just listened to the words and seemed to be all on auto-pilot. Flew by, actually. Nice.
Right, shall I tell you a quick story about my evil superpower I once discovered in a Bikram yoga class? So, having spent my first LOADS of classes not wanting to see myself in the mirror (I've NEVER liked looking in the mirror), I then realised that it would be really quite useful if I could force myself to see what I was doing wrong in order to try to do it less wrong. Okay, so one day this guy arrived late, as in after we on-time people had already started, and he put his mat down immediately in front of me so that I couldn't see in the front mirror AT ALL any more. Yes, I have been late for class before, but I hope I don't block anybody else's view (if I do, just, you know, breathe in an 'irregular' way, and I'll know what you mean, and move). Yeah, so, we did the first couple of postures and I felt a bit annoyed, and stared at the back of his head (really, just very momentarily, for less than a couple of seconds), and he just swayed and sat straight down, and stayed sitting down for the whole of the rest of the class. True story.
Also, I was once told off in the changing room for having been in the front row, because, actually, I need to be a good role model if I'm going to stand in the front row and not, like, smile or laugh, or whatever, and not take it seriously enough. Hmmm. I accidentally did the stare at her too, and I've never seen her again, and would not be at all surprised if that stare had actually killed her.
Night. x
Showing posts with label Bikram 30 day challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bikram 30 day challenge. Show all posts
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
Thursday, 12 January 2012
Day 10: Stillness
Thursday 12th January, 12.30pm class taught by Nicky
Day 10 done: feels like a modest-sized landmark. If this challenge is going to fall into three sections, like a pregnancy, I'm hoping the next trimester is the full-of-energy and glowing health one, because that's what I'm expecting (and neeeeed!) from tomorrow, please. To be honest, I felt pretty exhausted today, like it's all starting to catch up a bit and the tiredness is now having a cumulative effect.
I always like it when Nicky tells us to work on stillness in Savasana - to be fair, I have been working on stillness most of my life, on and off.
In other news, we have some pretty mild weather for January at the moment: 10 or 11 degrees and sunny all week, and yet I feel cold now all the time I'm not in the studio. What's that all about?!
That is all. x
Day 10 done: feels like a modest-sized landmark. If this challenge is going to fall into three sections, like a pregnancy, I'm hoping the next trimester is the full-of-energy and glowing health one, because that's what I'm expecting (and neeeeed!) from tomorrow, please. To be honest, I felt pretty exhausted today, like it's all starting to catch up a bit and the tiredness is now having a cumulative effect.
I always like it when Nicky tells us to work on stillness in Savasana - to be fair, I have been working on stillness most of my life, on and off.
That is all. x
Sunday, 8 January 2012
Day 6: It's The Gravitational Law. That's Why.
Sunday 8th January, 10am class taught by Nicky
Left home this morning feeling quite good, and muscles maybe slightly less achey than of late, but found this class the hardest so far. It did feel really warm in there today (yes, I know that's the point, but some days it's definitely hotter than others, and today was hot), and it was busy. By the time we got to full locust, I felt like I didn't have any energy left and had to dig deep to get through it all. During the next sit-up I had my eyes closed (I do know that's illegal, thank you for asking), and then felt completely disorientated because we were facing the opposite way than I had pictured in my mind. Weird.
One posture (although it's not one of my worst, if I do say so myself) where I quite often feel this disorientated, discombobulated effect is Rabbit. I quite like this one, but there's something about my head being upside-down like that with my forehead on my knees that makes me not have a clue what to do if I'm told to lift my shoulders to the ceiling. It makes me realise that I don't actually know which way is up any more and I sometimes think (just for an instant) that it could be possible for me to just fall off the world at this point. But there is gravity of course. I KNOW that. I tell myself that. And breathe. I have to say that this slightly out-of-control disorientation is not an entirely unpleasant feeling, it's slightly like being drunk, I think. Hannah always says something about 'Japanese ham sandwich' in this posture. What can this mean?
Anyway, struggled on. Like you do. Because I am hardcore. ;-)
Another enjoyable bonus of this challenge is listening to whatever I want to listen to on the radio as I drive to and from Leicester. There's some great stuff on the radio on Sundays: just on the way home, I learned some excellent facts about bizarre laws in Illinois, such as: it is illegal to catch a fish in Illinois whilst sitting on the neck of a giraffe, and it is forbidden to eat in a place which is on fire. It's good that their laws are clear about these things, because sometimes you just don't know what to do for the best, do you?! Also, spiders' blood is colourless.
It appears that there are people actually reading these posts (up to 226 views so far, not counting me!). Wow! Thank you for caring! And I hope you all have a superhumanly energetic day. x
Left home this morning feeling quite good, and muscles maybe slightly less achey than of late, but found this class the hardest so far. It did feel really warm in there today (yes, I know that's the point, but some days it's definitely hotter than others, and today was hot), and it was busy. By the time we got to full locust, I felt like I didn't have any energy left and had to dig deep to get through it all. During the next sit-up I had my eyes closed (I do know that's illegal, thank you for asking), and then felt completely disorientated because we were facing the opposite way than I had pictured in my mind. Weird.
One posture (although it's not one of my worst, if I do say so myself) where I quite often feel this disorientated, discombobulated effect is Rabbit. I quite like this one, but there's something about my head being upside-down like that with my forehead on my knees that makes me not have a clue what to do if I'm told to lift my shoulders to the ceiling. It makes me realise that I don't actually know which way is up any more and I sometimes think (just for an instant) that it could be possible for me to just fall off the world at this point. But there is gravity of course. I KNOW that. I tell myself that. And breathe. I have to say that this slightly out-of-control disorientation is not an entirely unpleasant feeling, it's slightly like being drunk, I think. Hannah always says something about 'Japanese ham sandwich' in this posture. What can this mean?
Anyway, struggled on. Like you do. Because I am hardcore. ;-)
Another enjoyable bonus of this challenge is listening to whatever I want to listen to on the radio as I drive to and from Leicester. There's some great stuff on the radio on Sundays: just on the way home, I learned some excellent facts about bizarre laws in Illinois, such as: it is illegal to catch a fish in Illinois whilst sitting on the neck of a giraffe, and it is forbidden to eat in a place which is on fire. It's good that their laws are clear about these things, because sometimes you just don't know what to do for the best, do you?! Also, spiders' blood is colourless.
It appears that there are people actually reading these posts (up to 226 views so far, not counting me!). Wow! Thank you for caring! And I hope you all have a superhumanly energetic day. x
Sunday, 1 January 2012
What ARE you going on about?
This is my first-ever blog, and it is about my second-ever Bikram Yoga 30-day challenge, which I'm hoping to begin on Tuesday, just two days from now, practising one class every single day for 30 days.
To be honest, you're unlikely to learn much about Bikram yoga here (although who knows how it'll turn out): I'm probably more likely to tell you about something funny I've seen on my way home from class, or what I had for breakfast, or what I thought about as I fell over in standing head to knee, but here goes...
By the way, for any uninitiated amongst you who've stumbled across this page, Bikram yoga is a series of 26 postures and two breathing exercises practised in 43 degrees of sweaty heat for 90 minutes. That's what the 'beetroot face' thing is about, because that's what I look like before I've even reached the end of the warm-up series. Yes, the photo is of me. Holding a beetroot. So, please wish me luck, if you care to - with the challenge and the blog - there are so many reasons why I might not manage 30 days of either, but I will do my best, and we shall see...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)