40!

Yoga Update (5/16-5/22/11)

Picture me doing a happy dance: I’m done with my 40 Days of Yoga!  Cha cha cha!  The project officially started on March 18, and I did my final yoga session on May 22, so it took me about two months to practice yoga 40 times in the context of this project.  I’m really quite relieved that it’s done, not because I hate yoga, but because I grew tired of feeling like I must do yoga because I made it into something more structured and public than it usually is for me.

Yoga has always been a way for me to unwind, physically, mentally, and emotionally.  This project taught me that in order for yoga to feel restorative, I need to let it fit into the nooks and crannies of my life.  Otherwise, it feels like another item on my to-do list, and that takes away from its more pleasurable qualities.  This was a valuable lesson for me and one that I will keep in mind in the future as I consider how I spend my fitness time.

I want to say more about the non-life-changing quality of this project, but I need to let my thoughts germinate a little more.  So I’ll come back to this topic after I have a chance to hash things out in writing.

Here’s how I spent my final week of the 40 Days of Yoga Project.  Apparently, I like yoga best when done in pajamas:

Monday (5/16): I take today off completely, as I am exhausted from all my weekend biking.

Tuesday (5/17): Hmm.  I don’t do yoga today either, and I don’t remember why.  Most likely it was the siren’s call of the kitchen, luring me with its drawers and cabinets stuffed with food.

Wednesday (5/18): I return to yoga in the form of a pajama-clad session before bed.

Thursday (5/19): After a long hiatus, I finally go running again (hurray!), and I do yoga immediately after my run.  I love post-run yoga—it’s always so refreshing and relaxing to slow down and stretch after a good run.

Friday (5/20): Tonight I do a wonderfully long pajama yoga session.  I’m not quite in the mood to do a yogadownload.com class, but I am in the mood for some yoga because I biked around quite a bit today and my legs feel tight.  I need some yoga to unwind those hardworking muscles!

Saturday (5/21): No yoga today, mostly because I’m feeling lethargic and a little overworked.  Instead, I spend part of the afternoon on my couch, reading and relaxing after a morning spent running errands and experiments.

Sunday (5/22): My final day of yoga as part of the project!  I do another long session of pajama yoga because again, the bike has tightened up my legs, and I want to unwind and relax before bed.  Oh, bed…surely if I could do more than the reclining yoga postures in bed, I would do my whole yoga session in bed. 

So that’s that!  40 Days of Yoga finished in well over 40 days.  Normally I fancy myself as able to meet deadlines, but it turns out that I don’t like to put the words “yoga” and “deadline” in the same sentence.  In tandem, they form such a paradox that my head starts to implode.  Thanks for reading while I downward-dog and wheel-pose my way toward a calmer, quieter mind.  I’ll be back with my final thoughts on this project…hopefully sooner rather than later.  Until then, namaste!