My Week in Yoga: Jump-Back, Relax Forward

This week was about counting down to a relaxing countryside weekend with my husband, and jump-backs for some strange reason…

Monday:  

15min messing around with some L-Sits before heading to bed. When you hear the call of the L-Sit, you cannot ignore it!

Tuesday: 

Evening yoga plans were replaced by drinking far too much good vino with a friend in need of some cheering up. An excellent use of time if ever there was one.

Wednesday: 

Double Yoga Wednesday.

It’s been a long time since one of those has happened. And what a treat it was. 

To start with, I went back to my very first Iyengar teacher for the first time in months. Time has been tight with work being so crazy this year, and I fully fell down the vinyasa wormhole prepping/doing my YTT and now teaching. But I was craving the slow but hard work that Iyengar offers, and the security of a teacher I have now known for nearly three years, so managed to carve an hour out of my day to go back.

It was wonderful class, of course, and it just felt right afterwards to say hi and to tell my teacher about my own teacher training and starting to teach (I had been reluctant to do this which is probably one of the reasons I had been avoiding these classes!), and to say a huge thank you. Because it all started with her. And you know what she said to me? “It is an honour”. I pretty much cried. 

Second up was an hour of vinyasa at a studio in East London I haven’t been to before. It was a nice class, only 6 of us, with lots of hip-flexor work which meant my King Pigeon at the end felt steady as a rock. 

Thursday: 

Evening one hour power yoga. Lots of long holds meant I felt the burn without getting sweaty. Which given it was freeeeezzzzzing outside was very welcome indeed.

Friday: 

Took the day off so the husband and I could get a nice early start on a long weekend in the country, but not without a yoga class first. What was billed as a 60min dynamic vinyasa could have easily been a level 2-3 class, and I felt every second of it! I did what I could, which included one ok pincha, but lets just say me a childs pose hung out more than usual in this session.

Feeling slightly revived after a rather large breakfast, and an hour to kill before we got in our hire car meant I crept back onto my mat one last time. Tried for some jump-backs (those are still going nowhere!) and stretched out some more. 25mins. 

Saturday:

No yoga today: just gentle swims, hot saunas, lots of indulgent Italian food, cheeky naps and country walks.

Sunday:

My Sunday kicked off with a 75min self-practice split into two sections. The first hour was in the  underground gym studio of the hotel we stayed at, slow flows mostly and some handstand practice. And once I was all toasty warm, I ventured outside to their stunning rooftop herb garden for some extra flows in the fresh autumn air. And I was so glad I did. The colours of the autumn leaves this year seem particularly stunning, so being up on the rooftop meant I felt like I was right there enveloped in the deep reds and warm oranges of the canopy. Practicing in nature is something special indeed.

Once we arrived home, I needed to stretch out after a few hours squashed up in the car. And of course spend some time with the cats. So 25min of cats plus yoga it was. After noodling through jump-backs after Friday’s abortive attempt, I went for the socks-on-slippy-floor flex again, and it worked! Well, kind of… if I keep the tips of my toes on the floor in my lolasana, I can push back from there. Including on a sticky mat! So am going to try this out for a while and see if I can get my body used to the movement before adding the floaty high lola back in. Let’s see!!

• Self-Practice: 2hrs 20min
• Classes: 4hrs  
• TOTAL: 6hrs 20min