Damn. So I took a power yoga class last night. The last time I took yoga I was maybe 21. It was taught by a hippy-yippy kinda teacher at the local community college. It was fun, I guess. I remember taking it with a couple of people, women, I knew, and they were impressed that I could bend as far as I could. Anyway, last night's class....yeah, not like that one. The instructor is the owner of the studio, a cool hole-in-the-wall feeling place called, Yoga on Yamhill. As Paul puts it, that is his apex of marketing genius. "What do you do?" "Yoga." "Where are you?" "On Yamhill." This was his class. We talked briefly before I headed to the changing rooms and emerged a few minutes later in sweats and a bamboo t-shirt. This is important, because it was WAY too heavy for the class.
OK, so picking up from last night...sorry I fell asleep. My clothes were definitely wrong for the class. I will be wearing shorts with compression shorts under them next time. They don't really have yoga pants for men, and I'm not that dedicated yet. I am sold that this thing is a real workout though...man alive, my legs and back are still grumbling about it. An hour of deep controlled breathing, with movements in sync with the breaths works for me, I do that when I am feeling out of sorts when running. I even chuckled when he wanted us to "box our breathing" In for a count of 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4, repeat. This is hard to do when running, but, yeah, I do that too. So this wasn't new to me. What was was sitting in a squat position with my body twisting about for 3 minutes at a hit with each leg, or sitting in a lunge position while leaning backwards. All in all, a definitely positive experience and one that I will be enjoying as life will allow. Every Wednesdays looks like a doable trip for now. My shirt at the end of class was dripping wet, and I was amazed and how wiped out I felt. I was very glad for all the push-ups and crunches I have been doing. I would have been toast going from a standing position down to a pushup position to the floor and then up to "cobra". We did that about 100 times...arms are a little sore still.
OK, so picking up from last night...sorry I fell asleep. My clothes were definitely wrong for the class. I will be wearing shorts with compression shorts under them next time. They don't really have yoga pants for men, and I'm not that dedicated yet. I am sold that this thing is a real workout though...man alive, my legs and back are still grumbling about it. An hour of deep controlled breathing, with movements in sync with the breaths works for me, I do that when I am feeling out of sorts when running. I even chuckled when he wanted us to "box our breathing" In for a count of 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4, repeat. This is hard to do when running, but, yeah, I do that too. So this wasn't new to me. What was was sitting in a squat position with my body twisting about for 3 minutes at a hit with each leg, or sitting in a lunge position while leaning backwards. All in all, a definitely positive experience and one that I will be enjoying as life will allow. Every Wednesdays looks like a doable trip for now. My shirt at the end of class was dripping wet, and I was amazed and how wiped out I felt. I was very glad for all the push-ups and crunches I have been doing. I would have been toast going from a standing position down to a pushup position to the floor and then up to "cobra". We did that about 100 times...arms are a little sore still.
