Day Two - Burn The Bras!!!!! Divine Female Energy is in town :)
Unbelievably, by some miracle my eyes opened bang on 6am this morning, just in time to turn off my alarm before it started to beep! My roomies got up shortly after too, and after awkward little gestures as to who can go to the loo first etc we went on our merry way into the yoga studio for our second meditation class. Now, as Vidya explained yesterday we had to be completely silent from the moment we woke up until breakfast which isn't until 9.30!!! After yesterday's frustrating meditation session, I wasn't looking forward to this one, or the rest of the 19 ones, but I attempted to brush aside the negative thoughts and go for it. And no, sadly no miracle happened, i was maybe fractionally less distracted than yesterday's attempt which I suppose is an improvement. The pins and needles came back to say hello as did some quite interesting thoughts which I didn't want to let go, but I tried anyway. On a whole, Im hoping that it gets more fluent for me as I keep practicing. The actual yoga practice was really challenging today, I really enjoyed it although I think the back of my arms are getting some impressive bruises from good old crow pose/bakasana!! The energy was great again and we all got to know each other much better today.
There are some incredible women here, from all corners of the world. One girl here survived being kidnapped in Peru last year, another lady after going through an awful divorce moved from the States to Paris and decided to dedicate her life to helping others through yoga. There is a doctor here from New York who wants to help patients by combing western medicine and yoga, an American military soldier who lives and works in Afghanistan and wants to teach yoga to help soldiers in recovery. Go girls!!!! The divine female energy here is so inspiring, to be around such positive strong women who want to make a difference through something they are passionate about. It truly makes me believe that by spreading the eastern yogi philosophies into all these different places, eventually the whole world will have been touched positively by the peace and calm yoga represents.
We went through a lot of the key postures with a fine tooth comb, dare i say meticulously this afternoon and got the chance to try out teaching them on each other, which was cool. We talked about physical limitations and that sometimes the way our skeletons are built make it near enough impossible to do some positions. I was used as an example for very inflexible hips, which touches a sore spot as in my ballet career, or lack of it ha, my tight hips and low arched feet were often pointed out to me as to why I would and could never succeed as a dancer. However, I have been working on these bloody stupid tight hips of mine through my personal yoga practice for quite a while now, so when the teacher said, ahhh you won't be able to do "lotus pose" or splits, I delighted in showing her that despite my god given limitation, hard work and dedication prevails. I was really proud of myself in that moment, as I realized how far I had come, even just as a student of yoga! I really can't wait to tell that story to my future students in the hope that they will discover that feeling a few years down the line as well!
The food is still AWESOME by the way haha!
Right, well I've got sooooo much homework to do tonight and another class with a few other keen beans, so I had better go and get on with it.
Namaste xxxxx