Day 15-21

Day 15
Day 16
Day 17
Day 18
Day 19
Day 20
Day 21

Day 15

So I made it halfway through. I did it!  Day 15 class was a bit………disheartening.  I stood at the front again, but didn’t like what I saw.  I think I may have cankles, and my legs looked especially fat.  It made me very sad and distracted me through my progress.  Maybe it’s because I was wearing rust-colored pants instead of my favorite black ones.  I finished class with a heavy heart – not being proud of any poses I did, and walked home sadly instead of exuberant.

I just feel like I am SO FAR from my goals – weight loss and yoga.  And it’s funny how one day you can feel totally skinny and great and the very next day feel so gross.  It could be because I ran out of time to make any food for this week and have been eating not my usual stuff – even had a piece of pizza and an apple pie yesterday and felt mad about it.

However – gross or not gross, I still finished Day 15 and am officially halfway through.  I have a lot to learn, so am looking forward to the next while.  If I can learn this much in 15 days, then I can’t wait to see what happens in the next 15 days!!!

Day 16

Well, I almost didn’t go.  in fact, I was so not going to go that I said to myself I will walk to the yoga place, but I might just walk past it and go home instead.  I was blocks away when I thought, well, in even in class I can just do Child’s Pose for most of it and basically just be there, but not do much.  So then I went.

I talked to this girl outside waiting for class and she was doing the challenge too.  Ironically though, she had laryngitis so I felt bad making her talk about stuff.  hahaha.  She saved me a place near the front mirror when I had already decided I was going to not stand in front of the mirror.  But I did anyway and it turned out good.

Breaking news – Shandy Rae was teaching and when we were in our Dancer’s Pose but the Shandy backbend style she said that what we were doing, we would eventually end in this:

src: http://www.tracis.info

cool!!! can you imagine if I was able to do that?  I wonder how long it would take me.  Maybe years?

Anyway, my Dancer’s Pose was SOLID AS A ROCK last night and beautiful.  I was so proud of myself.  Also, I really rock the Warrior 3 Pose.  I love coming into it from balancing on one leg for a long time.

So Day 16 is over. I did it.  It almost seems more crucial than Day 15 as now I have forayed into the second half of the challenge and there is NO TURNING BACK!

Day 17

Well okay.  Not going to lie.  Tonight’s class was not that great.  I stood up at the front and there was  a new girl behind me, and a bunch of people who looked like they were serious yogis beside me.  So Shandy says to the new girl “there are a bunch of seasoned yogis around you so just look at them if you get lost”.

Ok – I know she wasn’t talking about me, but I felt immense pressure because of that and proceeded to fall out of almost every balancing pose through the whole balancing series!  How embarrassing!

Also, MY THIGHS!! They are screaming with weakness. I am finding Chair Pose and the twist we go into after it just a killer – in fact, I can’t really do it anymore.  I just have to fold forward and hope no one notices me.

My Warrior Pose is a joke.  For some reason I just can’t do it anymore.  I don’t know what the problem is, it’s just not working.

All I can think is that 17 days later my thighs are just simply saying “no thank you!” and refuse to hold my body any longer in those positions.

God, my thighs are sooooo bratty.  They are ugly too.  Maybe that’s why they are being mean, because they are angry that they are so hideous!  I guess I would be too if I looked like them.

I know you can’t have a good class every class, but I am so disappointed when I have a bad class.  I shouldn’t take it so personally (plus it’s all my thighs’ fault anyway).

Day 18

So yeah.  Walking to yoga after work, I decided that I wouldn’t go.  I would skip today.  I had pretty much made up my mind, when all of a sudden – an angel appeared!  It was my massage therapist.  We both live and work downtown, but have never ever seen each other outside of the clinic, so it was very odd to see her!

Anyway, she asked me where I was “charging off to” and I said “yoga but actually I just decided I’m not going”.  And she grabbed my hands and hugged me (which is weird cause she never does that in the clinic!) and she said “no Torri – you HAVE to go, you’re on day 18 and you HAVE TO GO!”  I said “my thighs are too weak and I don’t want to!”  She said “just go and lay in Savasana then! You don’t have to work hard”.  After her pleas to me, we said good bye.

As we parted and I walked away I started smiling because I told her I would take seeing her as a sign from above that showed me that I MUST GO!  So I went.  THANK YOU ANGEL!!!!

Class was difficult, I’m not going to lie.  In the Utkatasana (lightening bolt and then twist to the side) part I barely even tried.  My thighs were just so weak.  The girl beside me was trying even less than me, so that made me feel better about myself!  ha.  Ultimately, nearly sitting out in that pose kept my thigh strength and I could do Warrior this time.  I held it the entire time.

I sat out in Bow pose and just did Child’s Pose instead and the teacher came over to me and asked me if my back was sore.  Then she actually pressed down and back on my lower back three times, asking me to breath.  It felt SO GOOD!  After that my back was very pliable and nice.  I was very grateful.

She played music, and did a few different things in class (which I like, it mixes things up) and then at the end we did cascading Oms and it was seriously so poignantly beautiful I almost cried.  I love cascading Oms!!  It’s when everyone does five of their own at their own pace and you just hear the rise and fall of everyone’s Om and it’s just gorgeous.  Everyone had a sweet clear voice tonight too.

After class finished she said “I’m teaching the next class too, if anyone wants to stay for another class!”  And you know? Can you believe I ALMOST stayed?  I don’t know what came over me, I guess because it was such a fun and interesting class.  If I did stay – I know halfway through I would have been dying, so I just left.  But I surprised myself with my “almostness” of doing another class back to back! First time ever!

Day 19

The day break made everything right again.  I was strong, focused, my thighs were working WITH ME instead of against me and it felt so great to be back.  There was a girl who lay her mat beside me and looked like a very serious yogi (you can always tell those ones).  She obviously did a lot of yoga but I don’t think she had ever done a hot class.  She sat out a lot of the poses.

And you know? That just never occured to me.  To actually completely sit out poses.  She completely sat out Warrior pose and just lay on her mat.  I struggled a little with Warrior and you know from reading how much I usually struggle with Warrior – but I never considered just……….laying on my mat and not doing it!  I do every pose except Bow Pose which is like 30 seconds long but that’s not because I’m tired, more that I know it hurts my back.

I just don’t even know how I could sit out a full pose – I would feel like such a failure!  I give every class my 100%, even if I don’t do it fully and completely, I still try!

oh, not saying anything about her AT ALL, just saying for me it just never occured to me to sit anything out completely!  Although maybe I should! Maybe my thighs would thank me.

When I did the forehead to knee pose that’s all the rage now, this time I didn’t tuck my chin all the way to my chest because I know they say it’s a digestion and thyroid pose – and I was thinking maybe doing it just before bed was too activating and that’s why I couldn’t sleep?

I say “all the rage now” because I don’t remember us doing it in class that often, and now every teacher does it every class.  It’s weird.

Oh – great things about class?  My first standing backward bend.  Holy crap, I went back so far I was able to look directly at the ceiling!!  Now, I’ve done that in Camel Pose at the end, but NEVER in the first backbend.  AWESOME!!!

Day 20

Okay, I’m officially dying.  Dying of lack of sleep that is!  Class is going fine, but I just cannot sleep!!  After my break on Saturday, Sunday night after yoga I slept totally fine, as I usually did before this challenge.  Day 20 night, however, again became a night of drifting in and out of the hell of no sleep.  It seemed I woke up every few minutes and tried to get comfortable.  I would feel comfortable, get excited and think “ahh…yes…this position is good….go to sleep” and then a few minutes later it would get uncomfortable again and I would move and look at the clock.

6 AM.

6 am and I was like – have I even slept?

There are not very many alternatives for me right now.  Either:

1) Stop the challenge
2) Do an earlier class (doesn’t work, it’s either 7:45 AM or one that ends at 12:45 pm and I have to work at 1:00 pm)
3) Take something to help me sleep (like what?)

Out of those three alternatives it seems #3 is my best bet right now.  I don’t want to have done all this work, be on Day 20, and have to stop the challenge??

I guess sleep is including in the things that are challenging.  Jeez!!

Nothing new and exciting about the poses though in Day 20.  Nothing I haven’t said before.  But on the morning Day 20 I woke up again with the yoga bliss.  God that day break really helped.

Day 21

So yeah, Day 21.  Was tough.  Annoying teacher came back from her holidays so I have to deal with her again.  She’s an all right teacher though, which I found out when she had subs.  At least she keeps the class vaguely interesting and flowing.  She has no clue who I am though and ignores me every class, and makes a point of saying hello to people she knows at the beginning of her class.  Look lady – it’s not “da club” in here okay?  You should make an effort to be getting to know EVERYONE and making EVERYONE feel acknowledged.  But she’s such a dork, she’ll never get it.

Everything was tough.  I sweat.  I stood at the back and there were two guys in front of me, one is a guy I like because he’s tall and a very good yogi and his Dancer’s Pose is beautiful.  The other guy I have recently been seeing and he’s a beginner and I don’t know, I look at him and he’s SO CUTE!!  I mean, he’s like probably late 40s and almost Dad-like, but there’s something so adorable about him.  He tries so hard and his mat gets so wet.  I don’t know.  I just feel like hugging him. Maybe I should try talking to the MEN of the class instead of the bitchy snobby women from now on.

But both of the men were having balance problems, which in turn made me have balance problems, and I actually fell out of one pose which I don’t think I have ever done in my entire yoga career (4 months).  haha.  Remember when I had a yoga career?

Anyway, was disappointed in self, didn’t get anywhere new in poses, but she skipped Eagle Pose (hurray) so didn’t have to undignify myself at least for that.

NINE CLASSES LEFT until this thing is done.