Day One: Stay in the Room

Today was my first day back in the hot room, for the first time in about two weeks (slightly more if you count it as being a Bikram hot room only, slightly less if you count the moksha practice I did when home visiting family). It was rough, as first days, and even first days back, often are. But whenever I see new students walk into a studio for the first time, the teacher always tells them "your goal for today is just to stay in the room". And so I made it mine. Stay in the room, do what you can, don't hurt yourself the first day back.

Here's how it went:
Injuries (pre-class, of course): Swollen/bruised ankle from silly, slightly drunk stunt on the weekend. Don't demonstrate standing bow, no matter how many people ask, when you're in a crowded room and everyone has had at least 2 or 3 beers. Especially when you've been out of practice for a while.

Postures: Got dizzy/black-outty* in Tuladandasana (balancing stick). Made it through Standing Separate Leg Stretching Pose but had to sit out triangle and most of toe/tree.
Almost talked myself out of it, but really wanted to do camel because I knew that if I did it, I'd feel all the better afterwards (no matter how weird I felt during...). Of course, you could say that about ALL the postures...

Notable changes: I made it into the room, didn't I?

Favorite pose today: Standing Bow

Least favorite: Balancing Stick, since it made me so dizzy.

Last notes: I'd never practiced with today's teacher before and she was great. It was exactly the class I needed, as she went beyond the dialogue and talked about how opening yourself up in yoga will open yourself up to other experiences in life. Everything she said was exactly what I needed to hear to reassure myself that doing my practice regularly is not "taking away" from the time I "should" be spending on other things, but rather that it will help me to focus better and actually potentially improve my concentration and thought process to be able to work harder, faster, and better.

*By black-outty I mean that sometimes when I push too hard I start to see black spots around the edges of my vision. This is generally an indication that I should sit down before I fall over. I knew that Standing Separate leg stretching would help, though, and it did.