Day Five: The only thing your body hates is a day off

Have you heard the one about the dyslexic overachiever? She misunderstood the homework from her yoga teacher training and instead of doing 200 breaths of navasana (boat pose) she did 200 boat poses... for 5 breaths each. 

For my mathematically challenged law school friends that is 1,000 breaths in boat pose. And that is what I attempted to do last night. Now get off your couch for a minute and try boat pose for 5 breaths, forget 1,000. Balance on your sits bones, bring your knees up, don't even worry about straightening the legs, and bring your arms up. And enjoy that for a moment.  Now imagine me 300 breaths in. I was almost in tears.  Obviously this did not happen for 1,000 breaths. In fact at the end of my night I ended at about 500 because I couldn't take it any more. And lets be clear, it wasn't 500 straight I took breaks. And I did it while listening to Kanye. 

I arrived at class today and asked the other girls how they did. No one seemed phased. So I mentioned to Fred how hard 1,000 breaths had been and that I had only been able to do 500. "Oh, yea, you were only supposed to do 200 breaths, not 200 boat poses." Oh. Then I made the mistake of asking if that was homework for every night. "No, only if you want to improve your practice. But you're welcome to just stay where you are in your practice if you don't want to improve." Double Oh. 

guess which shoes at the studio belong to me

I've heard many teachers say, what you don't like to do is what you need. I used to hate pigeon, its really really really really hard for me. And then one day I decided obviously it must be good for me because I hated it and I just decided to love it instead. Navasana is my new favorite.  To the credit of navasana and my increasingly strong core I did my first jump back from bakasana (crow) to chaturanga (push up). Without face planting.

not me, but just so y'all can get an idea 

Fred said something today that resonated with me "the only thing your body hates is a day off."  Your body might ask you to do something differently today, maybe your injured and you need to honor your body with a little ahimsa (non-violence/ compassion). More than likely though you're fine. You, like me, are just lazy and that is why you aren't practicing.

So, let's practice a little more satyam (truth/ trueness). When we're being a little more truthful the reality is that you might hate rolling out your mat, but you also hate rolling it back up. Because once you start your practice, your workout, your homework, your family dinner. Once you work out those kinks, you shake out the aches and pains the truth come out. It feels good. Really good.

Today was my first day teaching to the whole group of 9 people including Fred, which is kiiiiinda intimidating, its something that doesn't necessarily feel good for me right away. Its like pigeon pose, it takes a few times to get good for me. You also have to remember that everyone is two days ahead of me now because they are going to class seven days a week and I am only going four. No one died during my part of the class. No one fell over. No seriously bodily injuries.  I'm counting today as a win.

One thing you have to love about Fred is he doesn't mince words. When you miss something or cue it wrong he IMMEDIATELY informs you. And its not like a "hey next time you might try..." its like, "don't ever do it that way. ever."

So thats something that I don't like so much, but I definitely need it. After some tough love from Fred I'm feeling mighty fine and ready to go to 1000 200 breaths in boat pose. While watching trashy TV. Its all about balance right?

Namaste,
Rachel