Vinyasa

I go to yoga class every Wednesday night. My teacher is a super woman named Sara. I'm so glad I have her as a teacher.

She's funny, has great hair, good ink, and never teaches a class the same way twice. It's pretty great.

There have been times when we've done partner yoga (not my fave, but it helps put you face to face with your space issues), and then classes that have been all about balances, or hip stretches, or abs. I swear to you we once did (once the warm up was over) an entire class of pigeons. If you've done yoga, you'll know what I'm talking about.

To crib a statement my grandma used to say all the time about food, 'there are asanas that we like, and there are asanas we are learning to like.' I'm learning to like pigeons. I know they're good for me, but they're uncomfortable as hell, and about as intense of an asana as you get. However, as someone who carries a very large percentage of stress and tension in her hips, the more pigeons I get in a class, the better, really.

Tonight was a great class. Lots of vinyasa (dynamic flow) going on - it gets the blood going, and really helps me to turn my head off. I'm grateful for the time I have every Wednesday night to go.

Because part of what I'm attempting these days is to increase my mindfulness, I think the yoga really does help. I've got a few other things I'm doing (trying to focus on what I'm doing at the moment, trying to see things as they're unfolding in front of me, trying to spend time with my kids and really listen to what they're saying and to really play with them, etc.), but of lot of my mindfulness education is learning to let go.

That's the most difficult thing of all.

I'm a major control freak about a lot of stuff. I can't stand a messy house. It drives me nuts when my husband never puts his stuff away. He's constantly leaving his wallet somewhere in the house instead of always putting it in the same place, or he'll wander round trying to find his car keys, instead of putting them on the key hook. And it's like fingernails on a chalkboard when I go into my kids' rooms and find four days' worth of dirty clothes lying around (I know. It's just going to get worse.).

But where I used never to be able to go to bed without doing the dishes, now (sometimes) I can. And I've gotten a lot better about just scooping up all the junk that gets left round the house and dumping into the little green basket at the bottom of the stairs, instead of putting all their shit away for them. Now if there's something that's missing, I try to say 'Have you checked the green basket?'

So the yoga thing helps with that. It's pretty good exercise - strengthening, limbering, that sort of stuff. But a lot of it is for my mind too.

So Namaste and all that. We had a pretty good class tonight with a good extended relaxation bit at the end. I'm off to bed.