Day 12: Livin' on a Prayer

This was a full day--I met Marilyn for Yoga 1 at noon, then had lunch with Kelly and Parker before some tennis. Parker was sitting out the tennis as Kelly and I played--and I managed to carry on a conversation with Parker while playing, which is major progress for my tennis game. As I was offering commentary on the weird mind-body tug of war going on inside myself (my mind was saying 'hey, this body is tired!' but my body was still playing pretty well), Parker was asking me why I was doing all of this exercise.

He wondered if I was trying to meet some kind of goal, or if I was just doing it for fun. I answered him honestly without giving it much thought at the time. The purpose of the challenge is to maintain my fitness level, maybe progress a bit--but mostly it's because I enjoy it. And if I take a Zumba class or play some tennis in addition to the yoga, it's because I enjoy that, as well. There's no "weight loss plateau," or number of pounds to lose. Parker, being the good friend that he is, was expressing concern since I seemed so tired and wanted to make sure I realized that pushing myself too hard might have the opposite effect if my goal was something like weight loss. During my second class this evening, I was reflecting on that conversation. I realized that the fact that I didn't even have a "secret" weight loss target in mind, that I really was telling the truth, I'm just doing it because I enjoy it, represents a major shift for me, and an accomplishment in a lot of ways.

Anyway, the second class of the day was a special class for us 21 Day Challengers offered by the studio owner, Kimberly. I've never had a class with her before; she was great about offering modifications and encouragement. I was pretty "creaky" but still had a good practice. At the end of the class, Kimberly gave me some instruction on my fish pose...and through her instruction I realized that the reason I've never quite been able to do this pose correctly is because I was doing it incorrectly! I told her, "Seriously, I have been doing this the wrong way for four years! " Doing it the right way, it's much better :)