More yoga
Of course we've been going to yoga every Thursday since my post about my first yoga class (I'd link to the post if I had my damn archives from my old host, but they're still down; maybe I'll replace this futile whining with a proper link when they come back up and my crabbiness will be lost to history) (who am I kidding, there will be plenty of crabbiness even if I do redact this instance)
I could go on at dreary length about how much I'm enjoying this experience and what it's doing for me, but I'll limit myself to three notes:
NOTE THE FIRST
Best quote from our teacher, Annie, tonight: "Good... keep your head in and your shoulders down... try to let your leg support your body, instead of using your clenched jaw."
NOTE THE SECOND
Some positions, obviously, are easier than others, and these are different for each person in our class. For me, the positions that make the most body sense -- not necessarily the easiest -- are the series based on the "warrior" pose (sorry, again I am a little weak on the terminology -- I will get me a book and have it all in front of me). Not surprising, I suppose, given my martial arts training, but nice to see that my body still remembers them.
NOTE THE THIRD
Earlier this week I noticed some sharp pains in my pectoral muscles. Too shallow and too far to the right to be "chest pains", but I couldn't figure out what was going on. Tonight while we were doing an extended rib cage opening stretch my eyes opened and I saw the situation clearly.
What I realized was that because I've had asthma my whole life, I naturally breathe a little shallowly, especially in my chest. And some of these lie back - twist torso - extend arm - breathe deeply positions are stretching and opening my upper torso in ways that it may never have been stretched before. So... it was just sore muscles. And clearly I need to spend more time doing them.
I'm very interested to see what kind of body and posture changes these will bring about as I get stronger and more flexible. For the moment, though, I'm just enjoying how it feels.