lick by lick lick by lick

lick by lick TEXT

Back to Basics

I haven't blogged for a while for the simple fact that I didn't attend a single yoga session for 9 months. There were multiple reasons for this including exams, a broken toe and a badly injured back (never wise to wear inappropriate shoes while walking down an escalator).

I returned properly this January. I went to a class last October but over Christmas I made a vow to eat my own body weight in stollen slices and then get back to yoga. I bought myself a pass and thought I'd ease in once a week on a Sunday morning with my mother. The first 3 months were tough - I couldn't get through most of the standing series on account of dizziness and was exhausted to commit properly to the floor exercises. In savasnnah I would lie there in the room and think "I can't go on". Actually my body was telling me that my hectic work schedule was taking its toll on my life and thanks to Bikram I was finally listening.

Even still, going to yoga proved to be more of a chore than a pleasure. I knew things were bad when my mum was completing more postures than I was and being more enthusiastic about the class.

Anyway I had a breakthrough this weekend. I decided to go on a Saturday morning after having 10hrs of sleep, eating a decent breakfast and consuming 2L of water in 12hrs. It worked - I had a great class, the first in which I completed every posture. It was so good I returned for more on Sunday morning. The feelings of immense joy returned when I hit the peak of the standing series and my triangle pose even gained a thumbs up from the visiting teacher. My body feels good but it's in the transition stage where the skeletal system is realigning. In order to keep up this progress I must return this weekend. During the Easter break I may have to go most days during my holiday to loosen up my ankles.

The ultimate lesson is this - don't give up yoga for 9 months.

The Mats

All of the mats have been replaced by these lightweight ones which make squigy noises and move when you're attempting even the smallest of movements. Thus I requested if the old, firm mats were available whether I could purchase one. My instructor has kindly bestowed one on me. Of course now I fear looking pretentious, walking to the studio like some desperate celebrity (sans the obligatory starbucks soya latte). On the other hand it would be cool to make other paedestrians believe I am not an obestity statistic and am capable of having the government advised hours of exercise per week.

Shooting Pains

Due to the exam factory that is uni, my yoga practise was put on hold until after I completed regurgitating my knowledge on the gold standard and had recovered from the arm ache that followed (helped immensely by watching copious amounts of '90's sitcoms). Unfortunately when I made my comeback it was more Blue than Blur. In my absence I found that those yogis (plural word for yoga goers, copyrighted by yours truly) had progressed, they were in the front row, having mastered the toughter postures. It didn't help that the global challenge (consisting of 30 days of yoga) started on June 1st, my birthday, so given the choice of sweating for 90 mins over eating madiera cake in abundance, it was inevitable I would favour the latter. Anyway the result is I have regressed. My comeback consisted of me only completing 75% of the class and drawing concerned looks from my instructor who couldn't fathom my demise.

The heat is the biggest factor, in the summer, in order to maintain some differential between the heat in the room and that outside it is increased, or so I believe. I was ill equipped to deal with this. Worse still my yoga instructor sounded really disappointed when in triangle pose I rest on my bent knee and that made me feel worse.

Of course I'm staging a comeback on Britney degree proportions, yoga today was so so. I have to improve on triangle pose, rotate my left hip down when doing the second posture in the balancing posture and work through the lower back pain of the last warming posture. Who doesn't love a challenge huh?

Football and Yoga

Football and yoga - an unlikely combination. However given my love for a certain football team (The Red Devils if you must know) my two sporting interests often clash. On Wednesday evenings and Saturdays I often choose football over a yoga. Contrary to what I believed, my yoga peers are the same - the first all English final of the Champions League last May meant that the studio was deserted. I had taken the view that yoga consisted of people uninterested in the sport and many women who would miss out on watching desperate housewives would have decided that yoga was the perfect destination to get away from their beer drunking, football chanting partners. I was wrong.

Today I have discovered that my love of a certain Northern team is shared by my instructor. In the past she has littered references to football but never made explicit her favoured team. Until today when she noted that a male yoga participant's shorts bore the Man Utd badge. How far up his thigh her gaze must have been to notice the emblum (!) I can't say. However it will be nice in the future for one instructor at least to realise how much I sacrifice in future, on the occassions where I do choose to take care of my own body over oogling Nemanja Vidić's!

Airplane Wings

The practise that requires you to put your hands out like aeroplane wings I haven't properly mastered. I put this down to the fact that our yoga classes are quite packed and in order not to invade someone else's personal space I rarely stretch my arms out as much as I've should. On a Saturday evening when the class is smaller, I find it difficult to do the posture correctly, leading the instructor to remark that the person next to me should "show me how's it's done"!!! (or words to that effect - meant in good humour).

Usually when someone is so close to me than I can count the beads of sweat on their forehead, I wriggle down my mat so my arms won't be touching theirs. Unfortunately I find this effort to be wasted, my neighbour decides after one second into the posture that it is too streneous and collapses into a heap while I have strained myself, my knees grazing against the rough surface of the floor and seeing out the corner of my eye said neighbour torturing me by taking gulps of water. End of rant.