Monday, December 10, 2012

Little Breakthroughs

Today was a big day for me in an area completely outside of medicine. Yay! There are other things in life besides stressing out about my future career.

Indulge me in a little post about yoga.

My sister has a great workout studio in her basement so today we decided to spend some time playing down there and attempting on some challenging yoga poses. She has become a serious yogi in the past couple of years who can now wipe the mat with me. Yes...the student has become the teacher. 

So we both had some fun breakthroughs today resulting in loads of whoops and high fives sounding up the basement floorboards.

To start.

We finally nailed Bird of Paradise. It is a beautiful pose and one that I've often admired others doing in hot yoga classes. But usually the flow is so fast and I am so afraid of falling on my tuchas that I haven't attempted it before. (I took a very hard and embarrassing fall from a bind once in Whistler which has made me one-leg-bind-shy). My sister went from not being able to bind to pulling off the pose five minutes later. We were both pretty giddy.

Bird of Paradise

Side Crow
Then we tackled Side Crow. Which isn't as pretty as Bird of Paradise but it is another one that I've been too afraid to try in class. Probably a good idea since my first dozen attempts involved me flopping all over the place like a dying killer whale, then face planting with my arms stuck behind my back.
Sis had it on her second try while I was still getting mat-burn on my face but then...VOILA! It happened!

Finally we went for the headstand.

My mom had been warming up with us and now she took on full cheerleader and coach mode. Your hands are too close! You need to make more of a triangle!! Straighten your back!

"Head stand" photo by Richard Seagraves
Oh headstand. How beautiful you are to behold. 

I can't remember the last time I tried to slowly extend into a head stand (as opposed to kicking up with a wall very nearby) but something just clicked today. It was unreal. It felt so easy I couldn't help but think...why didn't I try this ages ago?? I just never thought I was one of those people with enough strength and balance. And really, these days I don't feel like I have much of that physically or mentally.

Gotta love it when you surprise yourself!!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Congratulations. I understand your feeling of accomplishment.

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