"Listen to the Wisdom of your Body"

Sound advice, unless like me, your body is an idiotic teenager!  Another week of plunging into my yoga practice, and lets cut to the chase.

The Current Benefits:

1. I can walk down stairs in the morning with out sharp pain in my legs joints and everywhere else where pain is possible.  It's like I have created space between all my vertebrae and my joints. Its amazing how much better your mood  can be, when you aren't thinking about little nags here and there.  Specifically the right hip and sciatic nerve. While I still know its there.  The constant sharp pain has been dismissed.  And when running, the only thing I think about is how I'm not feeling any pain there. 
2. Concentration: I notice my ADD is relaxing a bit.  While never finding the need for a diagnosis. My attention span can be pretty shoddy.   Though still not easy, I find my mind not wandering as bad as it usually likes to!
3. Breathing:  I don't know if anyone else has ever found themselves doing this... but in many things, moving furniture, cooking, putting away your laundry any menial task... I catch my self not breathing, and I usually realize it when my head turns read and I quickly catch my breath.  Yoga focuses on the breath, and I find myself becoming an average breather, which is a drastic improvement.
4. Now this could just be psychosomatic, but I am snacking less... and even if I do break down for a bowl of cinnamon toast crunch... its not 3 bowls, as I was prone to do. Could this be the yoga, helping with well being, boredom, stress... all the things that lead to my binge eating... maybe!



WARNING!



We are companions on the journey, just a different point on the path!

Onto how the practice is looking.  I have been feeling a little frisky, and wanted to up the ante a little.... you know,  see how the old body is doing... push the limitation a little.  So I searched my YouTube for "Advanced Ashtanga yoga".  Bold move.  And I found exactly what I was looking for... which I should not have been.  TROUBLE! I got this "ashtanga" term from the documentary I've been watching, which featured this guy, Pattabhi Jois.  He's one of the teachers that helped bring about the modern yoga practice.  More on this another day.  Many of the videos are long and advanced, so I picked out the 28 minute one... and am greeted by this picture. Some may take heed of the warning.  Me? Nah!  Lets see how bad it is!   Well here it is.   Not pretty... but I'm giving myself an "A" for effort.  Please don't be too concerned.  For the most part I am keeping it safe, and at a beginner level, but every now and then it's nice to see where the limits are.  Touching my head with my foot was about it.  BUT its very exciting to think of my possibilities of turning myself into a human super pretzel.  This was a really great 28 minute workout, where I was pooled in sweat. And thankfully, all accomplished in the privacy of my home! (No need to scare anyone.) What was even more interesting was that, is I wanted to keep going for another 10 minutes.  So  I literally looked up "Gentle Standing Yoga".  I needed to make myself clear to YouTube what I was looking for.  And it delivered.   The instructors great line of the class, was "listen to the wisdom of your body."  I had to laugh as clearly this sounded like a call to caution... yet, the wisdom of my body seems to think I'm much more capable than current reality would suggest.  But its my path... so its all good! 

Until next time....