Yoga on the edge

I had a yoga workshop this afternoon on balance poses, both standing and arm balances. I don't normally do many balances in my practice, but wanted to see what it was like. I've also found lately that I'm capable of more advanced poses and variations than I thought, but need a teacher to introduce me to them. This was one of the most demanding classes I've ever taken, in any exercise/dance genre. The strength and intensity needed to maintain balance and hold your body still in the poses was incredibly taxing. It really pushed me to the point where willpower wasn't enough to maintain the pose. About halfway through I thought to myself - I'll just sit here and cry a bit, then I can keep going. It sounds funny in retelling, but at the time the thought of just breaking down was very very tempting.

But overall it was really fun. It was cool to learn poses that I never imagined trying before. The first arm balance we learned was Crow Pose. After several tries I could hold the pose for about a second before my feet touched back down. But it makes me want to keep practicing.

Someone once told me that when it comes to workshops, if you take away one new thing to incorporate into your practice, then it was a successful workshop. Based on that I'd say this was an incredibly successful workshop. We'll see how I feel tomorrow morning when I wake up. After the workshop when someone said they'd be sore tomorrow, the teacher told us to think of it as a souvenir :)