Crow Pose - Breaking the Seal

A few years back, SweetPea and I attempted to take the Monkeys to the California State Fair. It was a ridiculously hot August day. As we were cruising the parking lot, hoping for a decent space, SweetPea turned a corner and slid a tire into the corner of the liftgate of a bobtail van, slicing the tire open.

The driver of the van attempted to get Babe, our truck, up on a jack to change the tire for us. Three different types of jacks failed to get the tire off the ground. He even tried adding blocks to the jack to increase the lift height. It was like that tire commercial where the tires pull up chunks of concrete when the mechanic tries to lift the car. Our truck was notorious for tire problems and we always had to call a tow truck because that's what it took to get Babe off the ground enough to change the tire*.

Throughout my adventure in yoga, I have had several occasions where partner or acro yoga was practiced, usually with the purpose of lifting or de-weighting your partner. While I usually participate, I don't generally make much of an effort to allow myself to become airborne. In fact, my memories of most of these practices involve my desperately trying to just keep my feet on the floor. I'm sure a large part of it is just not wanting to subject my 242 pounds to another person, but the rest? I don't really know.

I have, however, noticed a consistent and determined need for my feet to be on the floor.

Well.

I guess I should say that I have noticed a need for my feet to be in contact with a surface, grounded in some way.

If you've ever seen me walk my feet up a wall while in downward facing dog, you'll understand why this surface doesn't need to be a floor.

This weekend, Francisco Morales-Bermudez of Synergy came out and, yes, we did some acro/partner/thai massage yoga & yoga assisting. I tried really hard to keep my feet on the floor, y'all. I participated in the thai massage based yoga assisting practice. I participated as a base and flew my practice partner.

I tried really hard.

Finally, with Francisco serving as a spotter, and in a pose where the person serving as base physically picks your feet up off the floor (did you see that one coming?), I was brought completely up off the ground.

I'm totally not here to tell you about how the experience was an epiphany, euphoric, amazing, because I'm not sure that I would frame it in any such way. But my feet came off the earth and I was safe and supported and it was a deeply new and unusual experience for me.

In a way, it changed the standard.

For most of my yoga practice, inversions** and arm balances have largely eluded me. There are practical reasons for some of these, attributable to the dimensions of my current physical shape***, that may or may not eventually be addressed through continued practice. While I have been able to get up into crow pose, it is usually for just that barest breath of stillness on the way back out of the pose.

Crow Pose

Even as I've gotten stronger, in general and in my yoga practice, crow pose has continued to elude me.

Well, shit, girl. Your feet have to leave the floor to be in Crow Pose.

Sunday afternoon, after my adventure leaving the floor that morning, our class participated in a fundraising event, Flow 4 a Cause. By the time we got there, I was physically exhausted. Between our practice that morning and our adventure the day before (which I'll tell you about tomorrow), I was so tired. My legs were toast. I didn't really think I had an actual yoga practice left in me.

During the flow of a practice that I did, indeed, still have in me, we came through to crow pose. Nice & easy, taking our time to play with it. I was actually taking a rest when the practice came to crow pose. Maybe because I'd dreamt about it the night before, maybe because I was feeling more confident about getting my feet off the floor, I stepped back up to play with it.

I've done this so many times that I can do it from memory.

Get my knees up up up onto the backs of my arms, hips high, core engaged, taking more and more weight onto my arms until I can release one foot from the ground.

This time, though, there was a steadiness at this point. My body felt solid in the pose, those last wiggly toes gripping more out of fear and habit than necessity, until they just let go.

And, no, it wasn't just that easy. It took a couple of tries before I could do it without wobbling promptly back out. Even then I wasn't there for more than a solid breath.

But I was there.

The seal was broken. My feet had floated free of the earth.

Suspended in space.

Just as safe as before.

*Only once was a jack ever successful, and this was managed by a dapper gentleman in designer jeans who showed up in a two seater Mercedes Benz. Really.

**By "inversions" I mean poses like head stand, shoulder stand... the ones where your feet leave the floor.

***Look, this isn't a crack about my size, and I'm not putting myself down. Some of the arm balances are beyond my reach right now because of the shape of my body. I'm ok with that. You should be, too.

PS: one of my biggest (irrational) fears is falling. Which I think totally explains most of this experience.

All Bodies Yoga

One of the best things about yoga is that it truly adapts to suit all body types. It doesn't matter your size or ability, you can do yoga.

Sometimes, our physical limitations require a more personalized yoga experience, a class that's slower and more mindful.

Sometimes the biggest hurdle is the one between our ears. It's the lie our brain tells us that we can't do it. We buy into this fallacy that, somehow, we're incapable or unworthy of the effort, so we allow ourselves the "out" that, obviously, we are not built for yoga.

The beautiful thing about yoga is that you don't have to be built for it. Yoga is built for you.

And, sometimes, all you really need is for someone to bring a step stool to help you climb over that hurdle.

Welcome to your step stool.

All Bodies Yoga is presented by The Yoga Seed Collective every Monday night at 7:30pm. It is geared for bodies of all shapes, sizes and abilities, including those with injuries or disabilities.

If you think you can't do yoga, come down and let us prove that you can.

PS: We are looking for a sponsor to bring a second weekly offering of the All Bodies Yoga class. If you know of a business that might be interested in helping the Yoga Seed Collective bring wellness to more of our community, please let me know!

Through July 1, 2010

Tuesday afternoon I did finally make it to the Tuesday 5:30pm yoga. It's the same instructor as Tuesday & Thursday mornings, so she was happy to see me back for another session. We did a routine with Pigeon Pose and with a pose she referred to as a three legged male dog at a fire hydrant. A variation of down dog, I imagine you can figure the rest out.

The heat early this week affected our sleep, and by Tuesday night I was Wiped Out. It also cooled down Tuesday night, so I was able to get some really good sleep.

A lot of really good sleep, actually. I ended up missing my morning time slot for intervals. I had a half day at work, so I had lunch with SweetPea followed by a nice, long nap. I did my intervals about 8:30 that night to avoid the worst of the day's heat. It was pretty nice, actually.

Except for the part with the dogs. But they were ok. Funny how so many dogs are sure loud and showy until they get right up on you and they don't really know what to do after that. Dogs aren't a problem at 4:30 in the morning.

Podrunner Intervals, Week Three, Day Two looks like this: 3.84km, 25:59 minutes, pace average 6:46 minutes per km.

Today is bracketed with yoga. I did the 5:30am yoga this morning and I plan to hit the 7pm yoga tonight. As much as I love my am instructor, I enjoy the variety of different instructors. I like the Thursday night instructor's routine, and she seems to be pretty regular with what she does.

Tomorrow I get to put Week Three of Intervals to bed and I am so excited.

I'm off a few days next week and I've already spent some time finding various fitness classes I can fit in during times I'm usually at work. I'm excited! I think this means I've finally & officially turned to The Dark Side because I'm loading my Staycation with workouts. Ha.

Which brings me to a pertinent question:

How much yoga in one day is too much? Is there such a thing?

Really.

PS: I'll have a June Challenge Wrap Up post in the next few days.

May 24, 2010

Today's walk: 5.1km, 57:21 minutes, pace average 10:56 minutes per km (approximately).

I say approximately because my Nike+ stopped recognizing the sensor about three minutes in and I had to stop to get that fixed. I used the pace for the remaining 54 minutes of my walk, because I figure that's more accurate, anyway.

The walk itself was really good. It was about 64 degrees, overcast with a breeze. I felt so good the whole time and I even felt good at the end. It was awesome! The only sucky part was having to pee. I went before I left the building, and I kid you not I had to go again as soon as I cleared the parking lot! I ended up stopping at a taqueria on the last half and felt infinitely better afterwards!

Here's what my Nano had to say about my walk. I believe that line is my pace. Which, you know, is all over the place. Nifty.

This is what I had for lunch. And grapes. And then a glass of chocolate almond milk. I was hungry.

After I got home, I changed again, ate half of a Luna Bar (S'mores!) and then headed out to Mixed Levels Yoga at my gym. It kicks my ass in a good way and totally fills me with joy.

Poses I can't do:

Bow pose
Shoulder stands (or the Plough)
Boat pose (I can kind of do the partial or beginner)
There was another that was an inverted back bend and I can't find a listing for it that seems like what she wanted us to do. But I couldn't do that one.

There are also lots of positions that I can do that I'm proud of. She did a modified Eagle Pose where the "up" leg was just tucked up and not twisted over the top of the standing leg. She also did Downward Facing Dog pose several times and Dolphin pose, which was nice.

I like doing the Warrior poses because they're challenging. Last night she did the Warrior II pose with the addition of pulling back the bow. I like the twisting poses.

After yoga I had a small bowl of the veggie stew I'd made in the crockpot and a slice of sourdough bread. It was a good dinner.

This was such a great day for me, exercise & nutrition wise! I am so excited!

I posted on twitter that I think days like this should automatically earn me a 10 pound weight loss. At my weight, that's not a whole lot, but it's plenty to beef up my encouragement.

Sounds reasonable, right?

Now we're on to today and we'll see what I can get myself into.