Out of balance

Workout: 75-minute Deep Stretch Flow yoga class

Yoga kicked my butt today. No. I’m sorry. That’s a lie. It kicked my arms. Seemingly five straight minutes in down dog, a bajillion chaturangas and arm balances that were beyond reach.

My arms were literally sweating. That’s good … right?

And my quads … well, they were screaming. Almost literally, as we took the screaming pigeon pose. We were instructed to find a wall and fold our mat in half.  Get into all fours and then bend one leg so that the front of calf is vertical and up against the wall. Unlike the photo on the right, we put the foot of the opposite leg on the floor and raised up. I had to stay on my forearms, bent over at the waist, to be comfortable, though the instructor placed her hands on the front knees. We held it for a good long while … but my legs were screaming so it could have been just 10 seconds. Holy bejeebus! If you are training for anything, say the Boston Marathon (the day after my birthday this year, by the way) and ever need to stretch your quads, this is the yoga pose for you! 

***

As we were packing up after class, the instructor, Mary, told us that next week we would have the chance to work on headstands.

Cue feigned excitement

I know that I’m not going to have any shot at doing one of those, and that’s not me being self deprecating or fearful. I don’t have it in me. I don’t. And as I thought about it walking to my car, I talked myself out of being discouraged. After all, I’ve only been going to the studio for two weeks now – I cannot expect myself to do things that took others years  to master. It took me a good while to run a 10-minute mile, then a 9-minute mile and then a sub 2:00 half.

I will limber up, strengthen myself. It might take me a while and some time post partum but I’ll get there.

How do you keep yourself from getting discouraged? As I alluded to above, looking back at my journey and seeing how far I’ve come helps me to look at the little stops on the path forward and not the destination.