Monday, August 17, 2009

Real Yoga

Man I havent been to class in almost a week and I paid for it today. Yesterdays swings were kicking my legs ass already, and I put some nice high tension back on them with lots of static poses in positions that felt like I have never done them before! It's incredible how fast this old body stiffens up,although with the amount of sitting I did these last three days it's not that amazing. Sitting messes more people's bodies up than contact sports.
Add in the repetitive stresses of really bad posture and things can get really ugly. Especially when you get old, and if you don't know when that is you haven't hit it yet. Us old people don't have to have anyone tell us when old 'happened'; you just know it 'cause you feel it.
New teacher today in class and it's so nice when the teacher is actually helping you get through the class by setting a solid,rhythmic pace, giving great instructional cues, using the right inflections in their voice, noticing when the hot box we are training in is actually becoming TOO hot for even the most hardcore and generally NOT stepping on the students toes as they dance with us.
BIG difference than the incompetent instructors that mess up the dialogue so badly you would rather stick pins in your eyes than try to wait out the rest of the 90 minutes.That are constantly pushing and pulling you in so many different directions you don't know how long any of the poses are going to be. Not good.Stretching on my own is good but I need a real yoga class and this is it.Crazy hot today too.
So a very tough but solid class and I needed to sweat big like that.That's another whole blog post but people don't sweat enough and they need to. Actually NEED to.
Legs were shaky today but overhead flexibility was good. Concentration, however needed some help. I spent way too much time focusing on the wine list I was putting together and not on the nuances of each pose. I knew I was just in survival mode so I wasn't too tough with myself and I knew the 2005 zinfandel from Trinitas was in short supply at the wine club. Had to get myself organized,lol.
Hey, I got through it which was todays goal. Max vo2 tomorrow or wednesday.

datsit.

2 comments:

Boris T said...

A good or bad instructor/coach/trainer is the difference between success and failure as well as enjoyment of the pain that you suffer through.

I must say you have me intrigued into "hot" yoga. Done ashtanga on and off for a few years, but never tried bikram.

Mark Reifkind said...

boris,

bikram is a 'whole 'nother animal'.although I havent done much other forms of yoga in many years this is one challenging form of training.
and yes the difference between a good and bad instructor, especially in this environment is night and day.
a bad teacher,stepping on your toes the entire class instead of pulling you along makes it so much harder its almost indescrible.
if they can't deliver the 'dialogue' well they keep pulling you out of your body and out of the flow and distrupting the mediatition instead of the opposite.
let me know how your bikram experience is if you decide to try it.

155 x 3 x 5, 160 x 3 x 5, 20 kg swings 5 x 8/8, floor pushups 40, 35

 Thought about going back to 5x5 for a hot second then my left shoulder  reminded me why I stopped doing them before. It doesn't seem to...