On Target!

It struck me today that it's been MONTHS since I've been to Target. This is somewhat disturbing to me. Admittedly I have to drive half an hour to get to one now, compared to the 4 minutes it used to be before we moved. But I drive past a Target probably once a week, so that's no excuse. I remember when we were first talking about moving years ago, I said I could live anywhere that had a good grocery store and a Target in town. So what happened? I really don't know, I'm not sure where I'm buying all the things I used to go to Target to get, or even what all those things were. It's a bit disconcerting, like I've lost part of my memory.

We had a sub this week for my normal yoga class, and rather than try to teach the Jivamukti style we're used to she taught her normal Hatha Flow class. I would say she is an advanced level teacher, the only time I've had a more challenging class was that crazy balance workshop a few months ago. After I was shaking and drenched from the effort I glanced at the clock and realized in horror that only half an hour had passed and we still had 45 min. to go. I took a breath and hoped we'd have some easy poses to rest before the next strenuous part. Thankfully we did, and by easy I mean laying flat on our belly just breathing. The climax of the class was a series of poses leading to forearm stand.

This is a new pose I hadn't tried before, but one I'd really like to be able to do one day. I was able to get my upper body in position, but my feet were only able to leave the ground for a second, as I tried to kick up off the ground. One day... We also tried to walk up the walls, which I totally want to be able to do. We crouched with our back to the wall and palms flat on the ground, then put our feet on the wall and started walking up it. It's way harder than you'd think, mostly to overcome the mental aspect and trust what you're doing. I don't think I'd want this class every week, but it might be fun to challenge myself every once in a while like that. So long as I had a few days to recover before doing anything else.

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 :)

My first official trip

In preparation for my travels I splurged on several packing aids for carry-ons -- clothes envelopes, a universal charging amt for all my electronic gadgetry, a bag tether to hold my 2 bags together as one.  I also watched some videos on efficient business trip packing and was excited to try out what I learned.  I was very impressed how well everything fit in my bag, so well in fact that I was able to squish my pillow in too.  I'm so thankful to my chiropractor for recommending the contoured neck pillow to ease my neck/shoulder strain, but equally frustrated because now I can't bear to sleep on anything else.  So not only am I the twat at the airport with a laptop and 2 smartphones, but I'm also the tweed carrying a bed pillow too.  Still, I was really excited how easily everything fit in my bag.  Until I unpacked and really started thinking about the next few days.

Turns out I forgot to pack a few items.  Like shorts, pants, or any casual bottoms except for the capris I was wearing and running shorts.  I also forgot my pajimmyjams (PJs) and handknit wool bed socks.  This simply will not do.  I'm going to designate a pair of bedsocks for travel, and never take them out of my suitcase.  Luckily I found an awesome Lululemon yoga shop and got some new pants.  I had to get the regular length, since the talls were WAY too long for me.  I also got a beautiful purple tank top that I can wear without a bra.  Wow, I was so excited I rushed out of the dressing room to show the girl helping me.

On the flight up there was a 2 year old kid a row ahead of me who screamed nonstop from the moment she sat down until they opened the doors again.  Not cried, but that attention-seeking shriek that rattles the eardrums.  I kept expecting her to fall asleep from the sheer physical effort of yelling that long.  You could feel the tension throughout the cabin, and her mother didn't do anything to shush her.  I made up a story where the girl was on a game show and had to hit a certain unobtainably high frequency and volume in order to win the grand prize, and the continued screams were all attempts at winning.  It suddenly made the ordeal funny an somewhat sad, as she kept trying to hit that note but never succeeded.  At least it took away the frustration I felt towards her and her mother.

One last thing - what the hell is wrong with New Jersey roads?  When you pass signs that read "Left Turn Keep Right", what the hell is an out-of-stater supposed to do?  When all you want is to make a U turn and go back the way you came, why would you possibly think you should be in the rightmost lane instead of the left lane, and how in the name of Christ are you supposed ot get over 3 lanes of traffic at rush hour to make a right hand U turn at a light because YOU CAN'T TURN LEFT AT ANY STOPLIGHT??  There should be warnings about that plastered to the rental cars.  And the poor Garmin telling me it was recalculating was like that scene from Austin Powers:  Evacuation compl...comp...com...evacuation com..com...com...

Canine Yoga Helper?

Took Windy with me running this morning for the first time. It was great, her excited exploration pace is a bit faster than my running speed, and she wouldn't hear of slowing it down. Any time I felt tired I just had to look at her effortless stride and it helped keep me going. Once home I pulled out my yoga mat and started stretching. I was also using a tennis ball as part of one exercise. Windy came in to watch, and once I sat up and she spied the ball, she snatched it up and started tossing it around. For some reason she loves laying on my yoga mat, so during a practice I'm constantly shoving her aside. It's not really a problem, but now my exercise tennis ball is soggy and I have to find a new one. Still, she was so cute attacking the ball I can't really help but smile.