Day 38

My mind keeps flitting around to all sorts of odd little details concerning my health and my body. I read someone else's blog yesterday, and she mentioned achy hips. "Hmmm. My hips never ache," I thought to myself. So this morning while I was lying in bed, I noticed that, guess what, my hips were aching. Then later this afternoon, while driving, I felt the nasty twinge of sciatica down the back of my thigh. I worried momentarily, did my customary little deep breaths ("If you feel pain or fatigue anywhere, send your breath there, like an ambulance," as my teacher says), and I sorta just forgot about it.

Now, more than an hour after class, I have absolutely no pain in my hip joints and no sciatic pain at all. Sometimes it scares me to think about how my old body might feel if I'd never found yoga. This business of practicing consecutive days seems to bring me twinges of discomfort in a new joint, muscle or tendon with every single class. But they seem to always pass, often very quickly. I think yoga is making adjustments on my body every day, tweaking it to get it closer to perfect alignment. It is the most amazing process. I'm a little bit stunned when I look in the mirror. Head to toes, I am in better alignment. Literally. My freaking toes are straighter.

I got dizzy again today, during class. I was super-stressed most of the day, and ended up not being able to really hydrate properly. I got caught up at an appointment, and I ended up just barely making it to the last class of the day. If I wasn't doing the 101 Challenge, there is no way in hell I would have gone to class tonight at all. Stress really zaps my energy. And one of my teachers is always harping on how we need to clear the excess cortisol out of our systems (with yoga) when we are under lots of stress. It was tough trying to get through standing series with the black-out dizzies hitting me. By the time we got to spine-strengthening series, though, I felt good again. We seem to breeze right through all of the floor postures in the blink of an eye these days.

Super Bowl Sunday, so class was sparse and roomy tonight--15 students. Tonight, our instructor's parents were in class. It was funny when she said, "Mom! Lock the knee!" and somehow sounded like a bratty teenager insisting that she get her way. She jokingly said to an older man in class, "Hey, my Mom didn't sit that posture out." He lifted his head off the mat and said, "Her daughter ought to turn the fans on," and we all tittered. I really like our studio and our goofy little community. Another benefit of daily practice is how well you get to know your teachers and fellow students, making for a lot of support as well as teasing, joking, and fun.

I'm off to bed and yoga dreams. Sweet yoga dreams to all of you!