Week 1 Day 2

Rubber Band Status: You know those medium thick bands? The ones that can stretch fairly well but they're kinda old so if you stretch them too far, they'll break in the brittle parts? Yeah. That.

Discovery: Anusara yoga. I seriously love it. To me, it's the "technician's" yoga.

Meditation: Meditation this morning was comfortable and easy. Surprisingly, it felt great to sit and breathe (maybe due in part to my crazy day yesterday and my long night of brain activity). Five minutes does go by quickly. I need to remember as we continue through the weeks that it is good for me to get up a few minutes early to meditate.

I was seriously sore this morning. Thanks to Dillon, my shoulders, shoulder blades, basically everything in my back between my neck and my mid-back were achy. I knew yesterday that this would happen so after opening meditation, I took time to warm up my upper body. It was a great strategy and one that I need to remember. It helped me get through the rest of the class.

Conversely, my breathing also felt easier today than it did yesterday. Still some short, choppy breathing but overall much more free and easy.

The early yoga, together with work, together with my cardio last night, together with teaching yoga last night, made for a very long day. Monday's are going to be tough. I didn't get home until 9:30 last night. Thankful for something small - Kelly had put the kettle on to boil already so it was just a matter of teabag in and we shared our tea together before I went to bed.

It is so nice to have someone work with me on my alignment to bring my body into a pose that belongs to me. It's much easier to do this for others than to do it for myself. The external alignment and eyes on my form help me to relax within my own practice and not worry so much about the exact form of the pose. If there's a way to make the pose "better", help will be on the way. I almost burst into tears today when Dillon did the first adjustment on my shoulders. "Touch" with others is not natural to me (except when I teach weights or yoga for some reason) and yet when I am touched, it is releasing for me. It releases anxiety and brings joy. It makes life easier.

I appreciate the booklet given to me and what particularly struck me was the portion on balancing diet and bringing yoga bringing participants to their authentic selves. I also appreciate that I can eat. No crazy normal boot camp diets where I need to give up carbs, or fat, or whatever the hell is the flavour of the week. Unfortunately, if my authentic self isn't 5 pounds lighter than I currently am, I will have to buy a new wardrobe since so many of my clothes shrunk in my closet this summer. I guess shopping isn't such a bad thing.

I will add that I am very, very emotional today. The problem with being emotional is being at work and being emotional. I could cry at the drop of a hat. Not the kind of impression an up-and-coming young woman like me wants to portray (haha). We need to be TOUGH. STRONG. To quote Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own: "There's no crying in baseball!"

Ok, so the whole problem with yoga boot camp is work. Can we please just suspend work for 6 weeks and focus on yoga?