Today, I awoke with a heightened sense of my body. My Friday had started with training with Josh and ended with a two hour restorative yoga class. In between, I got in 14,064 steps. It was a Friday fitness feast.
I’m completing my second month of personal training. It has exceeded my every expectation. I do two sessions a week. Each session is a different combination of exercises. Josh continually assesses my performance and adjusts the activity or my body for optimal benefit. Yesterday, I held a plank on a ball for a minute…three times. When we first started 8 weeks ago, I could barely hold the pose on the ball and 15 seconds seemed like an eternity. The progress shows me I’m getting stronger, physically and mentally. Don’t get me wrong! I have a long way to go. Lots of the exercises make me look like I’m having an epileptic seizure. We are working on these lunges that sound easy but my execution is cringeable. Ultimately, I should elegantly rise and descend like a warrior princess. Right now, I’m grabbing onto Josh’s arm as I clunk to the floor and then ascend like a stroke victim trying to climb a mountain. It’s not pretty!
It surprises me how closely training aligns with my yoga practice. Josh uses some of the poses in my stretching out warm-up: cobra, downward facing dog, pigeon. And he helps me regulate my breathing. Josh tries to get me in tune with my body’s natural rhythm. It’s amazing how much more of a bend or twist I can get when I exhale out. Holding my breath in stressful times is a bad habit that has gained momentum over decades. It’s most apparent in my tight shoulders that are used to carrying the burden, physically and mentally. Josh regularly has me breathe into an area that is tight or sore. My shoulders literally drop a couple inches when I release that trapped energy.
It sounds idiotic to say “I’ve learned the importance of breathing in the year and half since I started practicing yoga” but it’s true. Concentrating on the breath brings a fluidity to the movement. And most importantly, it refreshes the body with new air and rids the body of toxic energy.
Jen joined me for restorative yoga last night. I like to describe restorative yoga as a do-it-yourself massage. The practice uses props: bolsters, blocks, straps, and blankets. The instructor takes us through a series of poses that we hold over a short period of time. Unlike in traditional yoga, the props do the work. The body relaxes around the props. I’m never conscious of time during the two-hour class but my guess is we are in poses for about ten minutes.
Our Ganesha instructor Cindy also is fluent in reiki. So during poses, she’ll not only comes over and adjusts us, she’ll tweak our energy for maximum benefit. She regularly came over and gently pushed my shoulders down and mini-massaged my neck. My favorite pose of the evening was reclining mountain. I had my legs perched up on two bolsters. My shoulders and head were positioned on blocks. It really opened up my chest. I also enjoy legs-up-the-wall in restorative and my regular yoga practice. It is a mood changer for me. The act has a lightening up effect on my psyche.
Last night, we had live music during yoga. Brent played various soothing new age music to match our poses. He also is certified in reiki and offered to use a reiki musical instrument to energize us on an individual basis. Both Cindy and Brent indicated if we didn’t want the reiki to let them know and they would respect our space. Me? Bring it! I want as much healing and positive energy available.
I have no idea what this reiki musical instrument looked like. I had my eyes closed. My legs were up-the-wall. The sound had this Seussical melody. I imagined this oversized french horn-trombone-clarinet contraption that acted like a musical vacuum cleaner sucking up my negative energy. I could tell where Brent was in the room by the closeness of his music. After he played over me, I could sense him moving on to the next person. I was concentrating so hard on this cartoonish imagery of his whimsical suction-cupped instrument that I was startled when Cindy gently pushed my shoulders down and gave me another mini-massage on my neck. I think I purred!
When yoga was done, my voice was several octaves lower. I was very relaxed. Jen was too. She reported she enjoyed her first experience and would do it again. We celebrated over a glass of restorative wine. And then I went home and slept soundly.