I froze my gym membership for the months of November and December because I was out of town a lot. I had told myself that this would be an opportunity to focus on my home practice. Instead, predictably, I fell off the wagon.  Leading up to this experiment, I began unrolling my mat at home and re-familiarizing myself a bit, but public classes are what really push me. I kept a log throughout my first week of this experiment:

Day 1 -  4pm 75 minute Vin/Yin class

This was a perfect class to start the year.  45 minutes of flow and then 45 minutes of slow, juicy, deep tissue yin. This experiment will be easy because I am a golden goddess.

Day 2 - 6:30 am Vinyasa 2

Oh jeez. High intensity early morning class that felt like 2 classes crammed into one.  I felt simultaneously strong and out of shape, but I kept up. Afterwards, I felt inspired to practice some of the poses that I hate  *make me pretty uncomfortable*: Dolphin, crow, headstand, approaching handstand, humble warrior, fire logs... I felt great for a few hours, but by 9am I wanted to curl up under my desk to take a nap.

Day 3 - 8:30 am 15 minute home practice

My alarm didn’t go off this morning, so I missed the 7:30 am class. Even though I was running late to work, I did a few Sun Salutations, cat/cows, and a healthy amount of time in child’s pose. Nailed it.

Day 4 - 6:30 am Vinyasa 2 class

Woof. I did not want to get out from under my warm down cloud of a comforter to stretch out my still-sore body. It was pitch black and so peaceful as all of the sane people in my neighborhood lay sleeping. Walked in late and basically never caught up. While two days ago, I thought ‘I should really work on developing my inversion practice.” This morning I laid in child’s pose as everybody else flew upside down in impressive handstands. I left only vaguely glad I went, but mostly in a sour, withdrawn mood. I thought I could just throw myself back into the same level that I had been building toward with a year of consistent practice. Not so. I really felt those 2 months of languishing. This Month of Yoga is going to be a bit more challenging than I had expected.

Day 5 - 10 am 60 minute Vinyasa 2 at ABP

Dragged by patootie over there. Tried and epically failed my first attempt at Super Soldier Pose, but I had a good giggle experimenting.

Day 6 - 10:45 pm 15 minute home practice

Snuck it in under the wire.

Day 7 - 4pm 60 minute Yoga for Climbers at ABP

I got up at 5:45am to make a 6:30 am yoga class. After wedging myself out of bed, stomping around, and just staring angrily at my dresser, I finally thought, why am I doing this? I went back to sleep and went to the 4pm.

Lesson 1 : from this experiment so far: I am very unhappy waking up before sunrise during the winter. I am in hibernation mode, which means I sleep more, eat more heavy, hot meals, and don’t get up several hours before the crack of dawn to do a restorative practice. Plus I am stiff and cold in the mornings and need a couple of hours to warm up. Late morning to evening are the good times for me.

Lesson 2 : Never take a 2 month break from yoga again, duh.

Lesson 3 : For henceforth experiments I will only make myself do something 6 days a week, cause let’s be real, everybody needs a day off every once a week.

Lesson 4 : This post is too long! Write shorter posts, more often.