After surviving pretty much 24 hours after yoga, I thought I’d celebrate with another class. I thought I’d do a nice “Fire” class to follow up with my “Fire” intro, but, in my yogic euphoria I misread the schedule and ended up at a “Wood” class. “No problem,” I told myself, “Core strengthening and stamina are things you should probably work on.”
Yeah, that was a rookie move.
“Wood” started out great enough. Lots of active muscle stretching and poses that didn’t make me look like the new guy in class, but then it really descended into a dark place.
Beware the lift-legged crunches. They are pure evil.
Because it was a 90 minute class, these crunches went on for eons. Honestly, how the hell am I supposed to keep my legs up in the air while I try and do 128 things that I haven’t been doing in years?!?!?! Yes, that was 128! We did ’em legs together, we did ’em legs apart. Rather, the class did them and I tried to keep up. I probably did about 55% of the 128, but I’m not sure. I was too busy listening to my brain tell me that I was a moron for torturing myself in this hot room.
I learned a lot about my limits in this class. I also learned that I have a tad more flexibility than I thought, but not much. Poses that were familiar to me from way back in the day came easily, and new spins on “stand on one leg and do this” failed horribly as I apparently have terrible balance.
That will all change with time. Hell, even the instructor fell out of a few of the balance poses: that’s just human.
All-in-all, great but gruelling class, and I’m damn glad I did it. Now I can say I tried out something different before retreating back to the “Fire” regiment to get my comfort level back up with how my body is adjusting to these new strange things I’m doing to it.
Tomorrow will either bring “Fire” or a rest depending on how my lower back and abs feel. My shoulders already hate me as a result of yesterday’s efforts, but it’s that good kind of burn that makes me feel satisfied with what I was able to accomplish.