February Yoga at Greening Place Yoga

In January I set some goals for myself, which means each month I will be blogging about whatever new healthy adventure I take. January was healthy dinners and swimming. and February was YOGA!

Background. I have done yoga like 3 times total. Once at a church class for like 10 minutes before I was ready to go whacko from all the quiet and sitting still, and twice I think in warm up for the cardio portion of P90x. Which was very, very, VERY hard. So saying I was nervous to head to not only a yoga class, but to a real, live yoga studio--was a bit of an understatement. I had that feeling in my stomach, ya know, the one...where you are so nervous you think you might poop your pants or throw up. SHUT UP! Do not even TRY and tell me you don't know what I am talking about--and if you are sincere and do not, you really need to get out of your own little world and experience some stuff. It's scary, but it is exhilarating too.

I chose to go to my favorite yogi in the whole worlds studio--Nicole at Greening Place Yoga. I knew that she would make me feel super comfortable and confident in myself, because--well that's just her. It's what she does without even knowing she is doing it. I had planned to go a few weeks earlier but then we had a snow storm and class was cancelled so I kept postponing it and postponing it (out of nerves and my husbands schedule) until yesterday when she so kindly mentioned on facebook I would be joining her that evening. :)

So I did what any normal girl would do. I blackmailed my friend into coming with me. I totally peer pressured her and basically gave her no choice but to say yes and go endure possibly some embarrassment with me. I felt good about it too.

We got to the cute little studio right on time and everything was all ready for us. We told her we knew nothing about yoga other than p90x and she basically said something to the fact that p90x is a whore and her yoga is a bride? I don't know...something like that, and I didn't really get it at the time but now, I totally agree. p90x tried to hurt me in yoga, like bad. And it worked. And so I sorta hated it. But this THIS was amazingly relaxing and refreshing.

She took us through maybe a half hour of breathing techniques and different poses. The only one I knew was childs and cat-cow. However, before I thought cow was actually dog, so I realized that my whole time stretching out my bootcampers back in the day I was telling them cat and dog, very incorrectly. Ah, well. You win some you lose some. Anyway, she kept reminding us to "stay in the moment" and I realized, because I already had to pee half way through the first half hour, I better just get up and go because there was no staying in any moment other than the "don't pee don't pee don't pee moment." I had to pause my intentions to use the bathroom since that was all I was thinking about for 10 minutes.

Then we did those poses more quickly, then we held some others, then we did some serious stretching...I think that is what it was. It was hard. I fell over a couple of times, I got several looks of encouragement even though she was probably thinking "This chick can row 80# dumb bells and squat a butt load of weight and she can't even hold her own body weight on one leg crouched down in the namaste position?? WTHECK!?" I know, it's odd. It seems odd as I type it to but that crap was hard.

Anyway, then at the end of an hour we lay flat on our back on these amazingly comfortable good smelling mats. They were like a long mat of jelly. Not sure what she called them but they were awesome. We got these lavender eye bags and lied back and meditated. She kept reminding us to "stay in the moment" and find our "Yummy" which is very appropriate for this girl, who was very hungry about 15 minutes before it was over.

Back to those mats! So She fixed my shoulders by pulling up on my upper body and rolled me just this perfect way and I totally understood what the "yummy" spot was then. It felt so good. She even rubbed my feet for a few minutes at the end, I don't know if she does that every time or just sometimes--but-- THAT.WAS.AMAZING.

We rested for probably 20 minutes and I kept reminding myself at that point to stay in the moment cuz I was worried she fell asleep or something. I had no idea that we were going to meditate that long. I yawned through the whole class.  And we even "ammed or was it ommed?" at the end, that was not my favorite part but it was a little funny. The whole 90 minute experience was relaxing and rejuvenating, yet hard. Does that make sense? I could definitely see how one could get addicted to that as I really wanted to hold my poses longer and better and I know I could be pretty good at it with more practice.

Kalaina didn't kill me. She actually really liked it and we decided we are going to try and make it to a class each week. I want to increase my strength and flexibility but honestly, in my fast paced life it was really nice to take it down a notch and breathe and clear my head. I'll be eliminating one strength session a week and adding yoga in it's place.

(Yes, I did totally check out the instructors body--you knew I would. She is STRONG for one thing and I don't know if she got her butt from yoga or if she runs stairs or what, but that girl got a booty!!! And it's nice and round. She was very impressive to watch-- I just didn't realize the total body strength one would need to do yoga. She has it. A beautiful, welcoming, relaxing studio that I am grateful to have been exposed to for a very good first impression of yoga--that is not whorish :O) Thanks Nicole!)