After 60 Days of Yoga: 10 Things I Have Noticed
Yoga
(c)Melanie Parish, 2013
Today is Day 60. I am noticing more changes and I have been musing on some things. Here’s what I have noticed:
1. My midsection feels “weird” when I touch it. I think it is muscle. It feels kind of hard.
2. I notice when I am in the studio I need much less space around me than I did when I started. I am really happy to find a little corner of the room where my mat will fit and about 6 inches on one side for my blocks and strap.
3. There were a couple of mornings this week that were hard to wake up for yoga. One because I was out late the night before, and one because it was cold. I notice there is a two minute “choice” period when I decide to go or not go. Holding myself to the daily yoga construct makes my choice for me. I like the structure of daily yoga. It gets rid of the need to have self control or initiative.
4. My core muscles are still less strong than I want them to be. This is obvious in all the balance poses.
5. The longer I do this, the harder it can be to quiet my mind during yoga. For me it was easy to quiet my mind in the beginning. Now it is more challenging.
6. I have some “yoga friends”. People I say hi to in the change room. As an extrovert, I like this.
7. It takes a long time to get fit when you aren’t. I started working with a trainer 19 months ago and then switched to Yoga 60 days ago. Last night we walked around at a night festival and I got tired and sore. I still have a long way to go.
8. I love my mat. It feels important to me.
9. I signed up for the mat cleaning service at the studio. This means I get to leave it on the floor and it gets cleaned and put away in my very own cubby. This feels both extravagant and spectacular. I am loving it.
10. I am hungrier. I suspect it has something to do with the muscle mass. I ate less intentionally this week than is optimal. I am not gaining weight but I am not losing either.
**My initial 21 day yoga challenge turned into a 200 day yoga challenge – share the journey with me starting here
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I’ve been following your yoga blog with keen interest Melanie. Thank you so much for your beautiful openness.
I can relate to a lot of what you’ve described. In particular, your thoughts about the morning routine are helpful for me to hear. For Nov/Dec, I went to Mysore classes at 6 am 3-4x/week. Doing so required a lot of planning on my part and the routine I developed made up a part of what is important to me about yoga. I have learned that the yoga I do is about practicing. I have (mostly) learned not to compare what I do on my mat to what others do on their mat. And it is becoming a spiritual practice; a practice requires discipline. The rewards I experience for having practiced are beyond what I can articulate. They are just that – an experience – to be had and not to be judged by me.
…these are just the beginnings of thoughts I’m forming about my yoga practice. Thanks for providing the opportunity to share them.
Thanks Monica for sharing your thoughts on this. I agree that the journey of the mat has much more to do with me than with what others can do–although I am occasionally impressed by someone’s bendiness!