30 day challenge update

Day 14 of my 30 day challenge. So far I have managed to do yoga on 8 of the 14 days, with a total of 12.5 hrs across 10 seperate sessions. Not so good. I'm slightly ashamed to admit that it may have to be a 30 hour challenge rather than 30 session challenge.

Why has it been so tricky? There's a few reasons, but the key one is exhaustion. After a run of several long and rather hardcore sessions I found myself having to have the odd day off to recover. I did drag myself to the mat after 1 of my early challenging sessions for a 'gentle yoga' session, but found the experience not so helpful. Following that I took time to recover after particularly challenging sessions and found that a day off meant that when I returned to practice I felt stronger and invigorated. After I discovered this the daily practice target sadly went a little by the wayside.

At this halfway point I return to the original reason for doing this challenge. Jumping from a very irregular practice straight into a hard core month was perhaps not the best idea, but the point behind it was to restart the yoga habit; attending yoga classes & workshops and restarting a home practice. If I get to the end of the month and have met these goals, whether (perhaps an arbitrary) 30 sessions have been completed or not, I will be a happy lady.

On a separate note I've been looking into how to get into Pincha Mayurasana and have found a good progressive build up from Neil Keleher: http://www.sensational-yoga-poses.com/pincha-mayurasana.html. I've been able to do Pincha from headstand (the cheaty way) for a while, but would love to be able to do from kick up (and stay up). Next month I'll look to build up slowly to this challenging posture.

Yoga with Claire

My body is a wreck. Today I attended vinyasa yoga with Claire Missingham at triyoga Soho. For two and a half hours this morning we did nothing but standing postures and vinyasas. For a further two and a half hours this afternoon we did a series of challenging floor postures, arm balances and further vinyasas. As a result of this 5 hours I have not an ounce of energy left on my body. I have spent the evening lurching around groaning. Basically doing a fine impression of a member of the living dead sans the blood. I don't even want to think about what my body will be like tomorrow!

All in all I would say that Claire is an excellent teacher. I was impressed with her deep understanding of yoga. It was not all talk either... Claire breezed through demonstrations of moves making the most challenging and advanced postures look easy peasy. This is obviously a lady who practices what she preaches. She directed clearly and sequences were lovely (if blooming hard).

For those who want to try out her classes I would definitely recommend. She teaches yoga vacations, classes in a studio in London and occasional workshops in various studios also. A word of warning though; do not attend a session unless you have a good level of fitness and a grounding in either vinyasa yoga or ashtanga (i.e.You know your Surya Namaskas and can happily hang out in chataranga for a while) or it will be too challenging. I struggled at times and do not think the class would be appropriate for anyone without a strong intermediate to advanced level of yoga. Note this could be partially as a result of the unusually long session... 90 mins may be a better starting place!

Yoga and Weightloss

It's a bit of an unlooked for (but nontheless appreciated) side effect of yoga, but whenever I start doing it regularly I tend to lose weight. Why is this?

• Exercise - It's not exactly a cardiovascular workout, but anyone who's been to a well led class and put some effort in has probably felt as though they were working pretty darn hard at least 50% of the time. Yoga also builds more muscle which continues to burn energy even after the workout.
• Stress - Enemy of the silph-like figure. Stress makes me eat more and slob around lethargically. Yoga is so stress busting... regular classes reduces my desire to stress eat and gives me energy to do things around the house of an evening.
• Alcohol - An evening session of yoga also gives me a form of entertainment, and for some reason after a good session of yoga I much prefer a big glass of water to a glass of wine with my meal.

However worth noting the more you do yoga the more in tune you get with your body and the more you love it's curves. So do it enough and you won't care!

Yoga Exhaustion

Ok... so I've been doing yoga daily for almost a week and I feel exhausted. Who knew stretching was so tiring?! Different parts of my body are taking it in turns to give me gyp. Luckily it turns out there is plenty of yoga designed for people with low energy; I've tried 'Gentle Hatha Yoga' and today (if I don't feel better) I'll be moving onto Yin Yoga. YogaDownload podcasts are a lifesaver here... the calm voice of yogi pushing me through a class when, if left to me, I'd probably quit after 10 mins in favour of sitting on the sofa eating wasabi peas and watching fashion police.

(Slightly embarrassed) reappearance at classes

So I'm officially yogafied up. Inspired by Danne of Twelve Months of Lent I've expanded/morphed my usual resolutions to 30 day challenges. There are many many resolutions I could pick... so instead of going whole hog I'm going to pick one a month and go full on.

January is going to be a 30 days of yoga challenge a la Bikram i.e. 30 sessions in 30 days. The background behind 30 day challenges is that 30 days is generally recognised as the period of time it takes to form new habit. I want to form a yoga habit, I'm also curious about the affect of yoga on my mood so as well as tracking yoga sessions, I'm going to track how I feel before/during/after the sessions.

I've started off pretty well - doing yoga every day and even attending a couple of classes (I think my yoga teacher was relieved I hadn't been hit by a bus!) Despite my long absence from classes it appears that I've done enough to keep my body ticking over so thankfully am still able to touch my toes (phew).

A benefit of doing yoga regularly is that it becomes increasingly easier to keep the habit going. Also my body is awake and my muscles are humming (in a good way). It feels pretty good.

To keep up the habit I've put some yoga sessions in the diary:

• Yoga Workshop with Claire Missingham (Sat 12th - £70) @Triyoga
• If you can afford the travel, workshop costs and putting aside a whole day, a trip to one of the various Triyoga studios in London is much recommended. Some of the best yogi's in the world visit the studios to deliver workshops and, if you have a passion for yoga, it's well worth attending to widen your knowledge and viewpoint.
• Day of Yoga @ Jilandra yoga studio in Hartley Whitney (Sun 27th - £45)
• I cannot recommend Jill Jones and her workshops enough - she has a true passion for yoga that is inspirational, lots of lovely ladies (and gents) attend her sessions which are also excellent value for money.

A confession... and a resolution

I have a confession to make. I have fallen off the golden sparkly wagon of yoga joy these past few months.

It started with the new job; travelling abroad 2 weeks in 4 and late hours played total havoc with my routine of twice weekly classes. My Thursday class attendance was made negligible from these travels; on the weeks when I was in the UK, I felt too lazy/tired/embarrassed to go along (pick the reason). My Saturday classes similarly went by the wayside as I rediscovered the absolute guilty joy of lounging around in my bed reading books until 11am on a weekday morning.

The problem with stopping yoga - even if you only plan to do so temporarily - is that for me it is a downward spiral... the less I do it, the less I feel like doing it (i.e. the more I need to do it the more I deny it).

I don't know why this is the case - it just is, and it it bloomin annoying. My partner began gently encouraging me to restart (probably noticing I was less toned and, more importantly, generally more angry and stressed) but that only made me feel less like doing it.

So a few monthly went by and I hadn't so much as rolled my poor mat out.

And then, over xmas, the boy asked me to show him some yoga moves. I immediately grabbed the mat, excited about introducing him to the world of yoga, and began to teach him some basic moves and sequences. We did it the first day and the next, and then his sister joined in and we were all doing it. This continued throughout the xmas holidays, until I realised I'd been doing yoga almost every day for a couple of weeks... and I felt great! So I'm back on the wagon in time for NYE and a resolution.

For many people, resolutions are an opportunity to cart out the old favourites following a guilty few weeks of excess (drink less, eat less, exercise more). For me they have been an opportunity to challenge myself; to do something to change or improve my life and widen my horizons. I met my partner following one of my braver resolutions; to join a dating website (which I did most dubiously) and go on as many dates as possible. Other resolutions were not as successful (101 things in 1001 days... although I did about 40 or so), but I cannot think of any that resulted in anything but positive things. So here goes.

I resolve not to let a week go by in 2013 in which I haven't done some yoga, even if this is only a 10 min session on the carpet in my hotel room.