Eleven Things About Eleven Days of Yoga

If you read my recent post in which I set my goals for the month of November, then you may have noticed that I have set for myself a challenge of doing yoga every day this month. At this point I have done yoga for eleven consecutive days. Even though most of those practices have been short 20 minute sessions on my mat at home this is the most yoga I've done in such a short period of time since the beginning of 2009 when I was going regularly to Ashtanga classes and to mysore a couple of times a week with a friend. I'm still processing some of what's been happening on my mat, but here are some of my reflections so far.

Bailey: My Yoga and Fashion Inspiration

1. My upper body is weak. It's probably not quite as weak as it was back in August when I started doing yoga again, but a lot of poses are still challenging and require modifications right now as a result. Not having a gym membership or doing yoga all summer really took its toll.

2. My wrists are also on the weak side. My third through fifth days of consecutive practices, my right wrist was actually hurting in a few poses -- plank and chaturanga in particular even when I was taking modifications. Fortunately, after a few days the pain seemed to just go away.

3.  I've done tree pose several times in the past eleven days and it amazes me how sometimes I seem to be able to balance just fine and others I start to tip over almost immediately. I'm still trying to suss out the cause - is it a comparative lack of focus, an inner ear thing, or maybe muscle fatigue?

4. I miss being able to walk to my yoga studio in less than 15 minutes. This was a luxury I enjoyed part of the time that I was in grad school and also took advantage of a bit in NYC this summer.

5. The pose that I'm currently feeling like I'm getting the best stretch out of is chair pose. I feel it in my shins and my calves, as well as in my quads. Bonus: an article in a recent Yoga Journal suggested that this was one of the best poses for runners to do.

6. The pose that I'm currently loving the most is pigeon pose. It feels so good on my hips.

7. I'm working to come to peace with how I look in the mirrors at the yoga studio when I happen to catch a glimpse of myself. In my mind's eye, I am graceful and my movements are fluid. The mirror, however, suggests that I am more oafish than lithe and my movements are more clumsy than smooth. I guess the first goal is to recognize the reality and the second goal is to work toward that grace and fluidity but to realize that even if I don't ever quite achieve that I'm gaining lots of benefits.

8. At a yoga class last Tuesday the instructor encouraged us to pull our shoulders away from our ears while we were in a forward bend, and for the first time I really noticed how different it felt to move my shoulders back down my back in this pose. It's all about the small revelations.

9. Yoga is better when you smile.

10. There is a possibility that yoga is even better at working out the kinks after a day of writing or grading than running. They both work in their different ways.

11. Whenever I don't really want to do yoga, that's when I probably most need to do it. One day last week I had a demoralizing experience with bureaucracy after an already long day on campus and the last thing I really wanted to do was to get on my mat. But I did, and breathing and moving with the breath helped me to let go of some of my frustration.

Do you have a regular yoga practice? What's your favorite pose? Have you ever done a streak of some kind? Writing? Running? Yoga?