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Health & Fitness

Road Trip

As she approaches the halfway point of the Challenge, Amie decides to take this show on the road!

(Note: that picture actually exists on Google Images. Could it be more perfect??)

Monday:

After a wonderful weekend of yoga and resting, I decided to mix things up. Why not sleep in on Monday and attend an afternoon class at the new Burlington studio? I know what you're thinking - didn't I just note-to-self about afternoon classes? Silly me.

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I've been wanting to try the new studio since it opened in April. They offer 4:30pm classes, which is great because it gets me home at a much more reasonable hour than the 6:30pm class in Danvers does. Unfortunately it was sort of a disaster… Maybe it was because I forgot about rush hour traffic on I-95, so barely made it in time… Or it could have been because I worked from home all day and therefore barely stood up from my desk and was stiff as a board… Or perhaps it was the early lunch of "juiced" beet/spinach/carrot/celery followed by the late lunch of emergency-I'm-starving leftover brown rice. Any and all of these contributing factors could have resulted in an awful class. But maybe it was just the studio.

Let's start with the rug. At all the other studios I've been to, they use the same blue carpet with lines stretching across to guide yogis where to place their mats. You can also use the line to make sure your legs are straight for the poses when we straddle the mat. This studio's carpet had no such line. And zero traction! It was SO slippery that I could not hold Standing Separate Leg Stretching, Triangle or Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee Poses. This is not the place to skimp for the cheap stuff!

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Now I will move on to the teacher. She offended me before class even started by asking the nice Indian girl in the back row if she could "make her name American" so she could pronounce it. Make it American?? Really!? Also... every pose has a Sanskrit name and an English translation. She didn't know any of the Sanskrit names, except Savasana (dead body pose) - but that's as common as "namaste" so barely counts. Last but not least, she had zero energy. And an awful MA accent. Just terrible. Did you see The Fighter? Yeah. Awful.

It wasn't too hot in the room so it wasn't a difficult class in an overwhelmed-by-the-heat way. For some reason, though, my muscles were like lead. (“Some reason” = the previous 11 days?) I couldn't balance in the simplest poses - even when not dependent on the cheap-y rug. I felt super stiff, like I hadn't been to a class in ages. What gives? I am loving the Challenge and am starting to feel the difference of the consistent practice, but I’m a big fan of moderation. I need more cardio! I miss my early-morning friends at Joy’s Melrose Boot Camp. If I I wasn’t so exhausted, I’d drop in for one of the Mon or Thurs evening boot camp sessions…. I guess I’ll have to wait until July!

I also miss the Danvers studio and Danvers teachers! But I will be be back there on Wed.

Tuesday:

Today is an “in-office” day (boooo), so I attended a class in the Boston Back Bay studio that I used to practice at. It was really good! I winced when my alarm went off at the ungodly hour of 5:02am, but once I got there I felt great. The teacher is relatively new; I practiced with her while she was prepping for Teacher Training, and it was really need to see how confidently she led the class. Especially, of course, in contrast to my awful teacher the previous night.

Thus concludes my short Bikram yoga road trip. I’m looking forward to heading back to Danvers tomorrow morning! Yoga dork? Yeah… I guess so ;)

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