My Week in Yoga: Still Taking It Easy

I dialed it back on the class front this week, both deliberately and by accident. Some lovely self-practices made up a good chunk of the difference time-wise, but these were definitely of a much lower intensity that either my classes or my normal self-practice. I said this across on Instagram and I’ll say it again here: I think this was the week of the fewest chaturangas of 2017!

Sure, I wish I was up and running full speed and repping out 1min+ pincha holds like a boss (my pincha is the pose that is my yardstick these days: if I don’t practice it, and I mean everyday, it disappears so quickly). But it’s not meant to be at the moment. It’s easy to say the results of nearly 3 years of this practice show best in the pretty photos or fancy flows or crazy transformation posts. But for someone as alpha and driven as I am (remember the time I broke a bone pushing myself too hard in this practice?!), THIS is the true result. Listening to my body. At long long last. .

Monday:  

Rest day. Still recovering from whatever lurgy knocked me down on Sunday. 

Tuesday: 

60min Rocket class at my local studio. Fun, fast, intense. Pinchas, full bow pose, and we topped it all of with some peacock pose work at the end. I was feeling pretty smug as I’ve had this pose nailed for a few months. But that ego will always come back to get you wont it?!  I learned this one with my hands facing forward in a 10-2 position, but we did it the classic way (hands facing backwards) and it was, of course, and entirely different kettle of fish. I should have taken the teacher up on her cue to do it in lotus legs but I was too in my head questioning why I couldn’t do it. Next time you sneaky peacock, next time…

Wednesday: 

Busy day topped off with a big work event. Which may or may not have ended with me singing karaoke. Enough said.

Thursday: 

20 minutes of gentle pre-bed movement. Down dogs, childs poses, not a huge much else. For sure clocking this up as an achievement given the previous day and nights shenanigans. 

Friday: 

Out of the office and into a 60min level 2 vinyasa class. Normally Friday nights are for Rocket but that felt far too ambitious for me today. Not that this class was a walk in the park, but I just knew it would be more manageable for me today.

Gone are the days where I feel the need to ‘work-out’ or just push push push relentlessly in this practice. I want consistency and longevity, and two things need to happen for me to achieve that. Firstly, I need to not injure myself. And secondly this practice cannot become a chore or a punishment.  

Saturday:

The best laid plans and all that… today was meant to be my normal Rocket class, a bit of self-practice, teaching my class. Instead, I slept through my Rocket class and the class I teach was cancelled due to road closures around the studio. So self-practice it was! A lovely 90 minutes at a very slow pace, full of backbends, hip-openers and a few arm balances sprinkled in just because I’m still me after all.

Sunday:

Woke up with a little bit more of spring in my step so rolled out on to my mat. 75min, but with lots of stopping and starting. It’s easy to get into the expectation that your self-practice needs to be perfect replica of a class (especially if you are a teacher) but if that is what you put on yourself, there is only one thing that is guaranteed to happen: you will step on your mat less frequently. So yeah, this was a bitty and disjointed session. But it felt good in my body. Which is enough for me on a Sunday. Well, its enough for me most days come to think of it. 

• Self-Practice: 3hrs 25min 
• Classes: 2hrs  
• TOTAL: 5hrs 25min