Day 2: MY SHOULDERS. OUCH.

Last night when I went to bed I felt fine but when I woke up this morning I felt like my shoulders were cramped and sore. This is somewhat problematic as I have a baby and need the use of my arms to pick him up . . . plus, you know, arms are somewhat useful in the general sense. Aside from my shoulders, I felt pretty good. I had some soreness in my lower abs but nothing too bad.

A notable thing about my morning was that I woke up hungry. I know that isn't really a big deal for most people but I can't remember the last time I was actually hungry for breakfast. Most of the time I end up skipping that meal and going straight for the coffee. Maybe it's a coincidence but I like to think that the addition of yoga to my life is already encouraging my body back into healthy, natural rhythms.

The lazy part of me didn't want to practice today because of my sore shoulders but going into this, I knew the first few days would be the hardest so I decided to push forward and not give in to the siren call of my couch.

Plus it's getting a little crowded.

I did one cycle of the Ashtanga A series before doing a few cycles of the B series. I really wanted to allow myself to spend some time in chair pose and warrior 1. I expected those to be painful on my shoulders since both require raised arms but the stretch actually felt nice. During my last cycle of the B series, I added in some warrior 2 which was a little more trying on my arms but still, not as painful as expected. My plank pose wasn't great today, particularly when I lowered myself down. Yesterday I was able to lower myself slowly and evenly to really work those muscles. Today, I flat out collapsed on my face each time. My shoulders just weren't having it today.

As I moved through my poses, I discovered I had a lot of tightness in my hips so I spent a little bit of a time in a squat and felt a nice, deep stretch. I tried some cobbler's pose next which is a pose I used to LOVE doing. When my hips were looser I'd sit like that for ages while watching TV or hanging out on the floor with my son, bending forward with a straight back to deepen the stretch with my knees on the floor. Here's a great demonstrative picture from yogabycandace.com:

SO GOOD.

But today it was evident I haven't done it in a while as my hips were not at all forgiving. They were tight, unyielding, and my knees were closer to my ears than the floor. However, I stretched it out a bit and breathed into the pose which opened my hips a little but I decided not to push too hard. It's bad enough my shoulders hurt, I didn't want to mess up my other limbs, too.

Is there anything better than savasana at the end of a yoga practice? My shoulders melted back into my mat and all the tension and pain faded, leaving me with a calm awareness of my body and my breath. I feel like a stereotypical New Age-y weirdo for saying that but it's true--savasana rocks my socks. I'm not fully transitioned over to the "yoga lifestyle": yoga, tea, all organic "DID YOU GUYS KNOW I'M VEGAN?!" type of stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I'm just not there at the moment. There's also nothing that requires you to fall into a certain "type" in order to be a yoga-lover.

However.

On day two of this challenge, I understand the stereotype. Despite my aches and pains, I feel lighter, like I'm breathing better, and I don't want to bog myself down with heavy, greasy foods. That being said, I'm not drastically changing my diet at the moment and let's be real, I'm on my second cup of coffee as I'm typing this. The biggest dietary change I've made so far is to include breakfast which is a big deal for me. But down the line . . . who knows? I'm certainly open to the possibility of modifying my diet to enhance my health and daily yoga practice.

That being said, the idea of giving up coffee in the morning or beer during football games sounds ludicrous to me. Of course, now that I've said that I wouldn't be surprised if in six months I'm eating my words along with an all organic bowl of vegan yum-yums that I grew in my own garden while my coffee maker gathers dust.

Just kidding, there wouldn't be any dust.

A note about my terminology: the title of this blog is "Sanskrit Scares Me" and as you might've noticed, the only sanskrit term I've used is "savasana" and I prefer the colloquial names for yoga poses. Sanskrit is beautiful but it's a dead language and unless you're a dedicated yoga practitioner/instructor, you probably won't know the Sanskrit names for poses. Even people who are only vaguely familiar with yoga will know what downward-facing dog is but "adho mukha svanasana" looks like I slammed my face on my keyboard. I plan on further expounding on my preferences regarding pose names in a future post but for now, you can expect me to use English terminology. Except for savasana--I don't particularly like saying "corpse pose" because it sounds a little morbid and I find myself thinking morbid thoughts during that part of my practice rather than relaxing my body and enjoying the way it feels after yoga. But that's my own issue.