Practice Log: Community Yoga Class

Sunday afternoons from 4 to 5 is the community yoga class at Yoga Tree. This is the class that I first started going to back in November when I hurt my back and wanted to try to do something to strengthen my core and try to relieve some of the leftover pain from the injury.

Since it's a wonderful mixed-level-everyone-is-welcome kind of class, there are always a few giggles and some lovely conversation afterwards. Today, the next-door neighbor decided to start running his lawnmower just as we pushed back into our first downward dog. Robin laughed and said that this was good practice for us in keeping our focus, and I bust out laughing at that one. How true! Instead of an annoyance, look at it from the perspective of what we can learn from it!

One of the things I love about this class is that I'm at the point now with my own practice that I can do just about the entire class with my eyes closed. And I like it that way.

I noticed a couple of things in class tonight: for starters, when we began, my heart was pounding rapidly in my chest. Almost like I was about to have an anxiety attack. It very often feels that way at the beginning of class - my heart pounds, I feel weak, my breathing is shallow, and maybe I'm even a little dizzy - but then once we're into it, those feelings go away, and my heart starts pounding because I'm making demands on my muscles to move into and out of the poses gracefully.

Next, I noticed that when I'm at home, there are certain poses that I can do with no problems, but that I struggle with in class. This doesn't always happen - obviously, every day on the mat is different. But I've noticed with consistency that there are just some poses that I shake and struggle with in class at the studio, but at home, I can glide through them with ease. What's up with THAT?

Finally, at the end of tonight's class, instead of laying down in savasana, I sat up and did a little bit of meditation. It was lovely, and I felt a pleasant vibration in my forehead. It wasn't until I heard Robin's voice gently bringing me back did I realize just how deep into meditation I had gone.

After class, I also talked to Robin a bit about some of the things I'm practicing at home - Surya Namaskara B, in particular. It's still a bit of a challenge for me...but that's a blog for another day. Namaste.