Fat Girl Does Yoga & Lives!

Things about my yoga class that normal people would probably have never noticed:

1. There was at least one dog spirit in the room. It came snuffling about when we were all lying on the ground in the dark. My guess is something fluffy and excited (Australian Shepherd, not Shih Tzu)

2. Fat girls look funny doing yoga. Secondarily: a room full of mirrors may not have been a fantastic choice for a first yoga class for a fat girl (let me just say: whoa)

3. I really have a problem with those twisty moves that involve right/left/right and, oh, yeah, put that one hand in the air and look at it. Now do the reverse. OK, this is the part where my brain fries out of my skull because I can't follow. I don't know why. And it doesn't help to look at the instructor, because he's facing me so it's reverse and my brain just can't convert that. It's the mirrored image thing. I have no idea why that's so hard for me.

4. I totally didn't fall on my ass, but I almost did. Only once, though, so that's pretty awesome.

5. I have a really hard time keeping track of how I'm supposed to be breathing when. Inhale on what move? What? I know that's part of the whole yoga thing, so I'll have to work on that.

6. There were only a couple of moves I couldn't do the "correct" way. One the instructor demonstrated a modification for, the other I just winged it. The second one was, I think, similar to this, but we were actually holding the knee, instead of just palm-on. and the instructor was talking about tucking the lower hip in so we can extend the top knee further. I don't know. I just could not keep a grip on my knee and I know my whole pose was more of a WTF than anything else. I think it would have been better if I could have taken the strap under the knee and held on to that. I might just try that next time.

7. At the end, he had us lying in the corpse pose in the dark for a few minutes and I totally didn't fall asleep with is SO AWESOME (thank you, CPAP!). Then it's just wiggle your fingers and toes and my brain wigged out... Hello! Time to MOVE! I guess I handle stillness well, but not slow transitions. I like getting on with it.

8. My initial reaction to the gym itself was largely "Eew! I am SO GLAD this is not MY GYM!" But the more I think about it, the more I realize there's nothing wrong with the gym, I'm just accustomed to MY gym. The gym the class is at is older, smaller, busier. There's nothing wrong with any of those things other than it's not what I'm used to.

9. Yoga blocks are not comfortable to sit on.

I'm really proud of how far out of my comfort zone I went to do this (and, believe me, it was super far). About 20 minutes in, it felt almost like my brain woke up and the thought popped up "wait, I have to do this for the whole hour?" But I did it, and I did all of it, and I'm proud of myself. Afterwards I felt kind of sweaty, kind of achy & tired, and kind of excited. Today my joints have that nice feeling they get after being stretched well. I feel achy in some spots, and I feel like I've got bruises on my hips from laying on my back with my knees tucked up rocking back & forth (note to self: next time, grab two mats!). Mostly, though, I feel good and excited and like I can't wait to do it some more.

I plan on going back next Wednesday to take that class again, but I'm also thinking about taking the Gentle Yoga class tomorrow morning, too.

Excited!


PS: I have some more thoughts on the bariatric surgery thing, including some stories to tell y'all, but that's going to have to wait because my brain has been strangely scattered today. Which isn't abnormal or anything.