Mixing it up!

Well, I had a lovely yoga weekend! (And I am bummed to be back in my office right now but oh well.)

I did my usual Bikram classes at 10am on Saturday and Sunday. But there was also a guy named Brian in town (one of my internet buddies, in fact) who was doing a hot yoga workshop downtown which I went to on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. He's been teaching for like a million years, and he was trained by one of Bikram's students, not by Bikram, so his yoga class is different from Bikram's but very closely related. He's kinda like a stepchild of the Bikram family. He teaches a great class and I learned whole a bunch of things!! The class on Saturday was ALMOST the same postures as Bikram's beginning class, but with a bunch of little changes in sequence, and the class on Sunday had a lot more postures from the advanced series and basically felt like 45 minutes of hip openers. (At first I was like - hm - hip openers - that's what I need like I need a hole in the head - but it ended up feeling really good.)

And ALSO, one of my old teachers from Boston sent me a message the other day saying, "J, are you doing backbends?" and I was like "...... noooo I never do that...." and she gave me some instructions for doing backbends down the wall at home, and it actually sounded like a good idea. So on Saturday, after I did regular class and Brian's class, I went home and did 25 backbends down the wall. Then woke up Sunday for two more yoga classes again.

I think there must be some benefit to mixing things up like this, cause I did something BRAND NEW after the last class on Sunday (and it wasn't even really hot in the room)! After I took my savasana at the end of Brian's class, I was like, hmmm, my body feels so bendy right now, I wonder if I can do anything interesting. So I tried pushing up into full cobra - toes to nose - and that felt good. So then I though - Hmmmm, I wonder if I can take my hands off the floor and hold my feet. (Which is something that I've attempted doing several times in the past, but never with any success. I usually just hold my knees.) So I grab one foot - Hm, that's easy enough. Other foot? Fumbled around a little (damn tight shoulder) and then got that one too! Then I just... PULLED.... and all of a sudden I'm wearing my feet like a damn necklace. I was like.... HUH!! I did not expect that to happen! Came out, looked at Brian - Dude, did you see that?! Let's see if I can do it again. I try it again. It still works!

Brian goes - Man, I can't believe your head was almost on your BUTT. I'm like - Whaaaaat?! NO it was not. Do you have a camera?!? He has an iphone. Hooray! I do it a third time and he takes some pictures. Brian - Look at how close your head is to your butt!! Me - Nooooooo that's just an optical illusion cause I have black pants on... actually..... oh my god...

Check this out. I am totally shocked by it. New party trick!!!!! (Just kidding.) I am posting since you guys had a good respose the last time I posted a picture! :) The NEXT step is to let GO of my feet and have them stay there by themselves. Maybe I try that tonight.

OMG that's not even normal. I think my hips need to be DOWN!!!!