Hey there and happy Monday!! I hope everyone had a great weekend. I had a busy one, so this post is a bit long. I left the office at 4 on Friday and decided to swing by the park to eat the dinner I packed. Brian was texting me about the storms coming, but I was looking at blue skies.
At 5pm, my first night of yin yoga training began. I signed up at a studio nearby but I had yet to go there yet so it was my first time there and got a little tour and met everyone. After introductions, we dived right into training with the question, What is Yin Yoga? Though I have taken a few different yin classes in the last couple years, I already feel like I got a better understanding of the practice of yin on the first day of training. It’s nice to continue to learn something new.
We had about 2 hours of going through slides and doing a few exercises before taking a break and doing an hour and a half yin practice to wrap up the evening. Oh and during this time it did pour buckets outside as the radar predicted. I was happy to be inside during the time and the rain cleared by the end of training at 9pm.
Since I was down the street from Wegmans and Wegmans is open 24 hours, I decided to just do my grocery shopping before heading home. It turned out to be a great decision so I didn’t have to shop Saturday morning.
I got home around 10pm. Here is where you may laugh at me. I was all set to take a shower but saw a daddy longlegs hanging out by the bathtub and he was moving right along and I was not comfortable. So instead, washed my feet in the sink and then crawled into bed with my journal to do my yin homework reflecting on the practice. I may love writing and it’s great to have questions for prompts, but answering the emotion question was still challenging. I think I was fairly zoned out in practice which was good as I was in the present moment for the bulk of it, but did talk about how there is always fear of the unknown of what’s next in the back of my mind. I am improving on that though especially after traveling and all that unknown.
Finally at 11 it was time to sleep and I slept great until the birds were wide awake around 6:30. I stayed in bed until my alarm at 7:10 and then got up to make protein pancakes.
Saturday, training began at noon, so in the morning I was able to go do my weight lifting session at the gym, shower (daddy longlegs disappeared and I am pretending I never saw him), do laundry and make lentils for an early lunch.
I arrived at training and we started with sharing our journals with a partner. I actually really enjoyed this as it is always great to hear that someone else had similar emotions through practice and knows what you are talking about. Saturday’s training we really dug into our hips. We went over specific poses and then taught them to a partner and gave feedback. I know I still need to work on my words through a pose, but one thing I like about yin is that you need to allow space. In other words, silence is sometimes OK and you need that silence in order to allow the person to move at their own pace to go deeper.
The 4 hours really flew by and I think it is the perfect amount of time for a training as you still have part of the day left. We ended with a 15 minute Nidra (a longer savasana) and at the end I felt we were all blissed out.
When I got home, I was hungry. I had some food I could make, but Brian’s brother made some pulled pork so I had a bit of that and some broccoli slaw. It was perfectly filling. I enjoyed a bit of youtube and Netflix and then started some yin yoga reading for a while. I ended the evening with a salt bath to relax and help my sore muscles and then headed to bed earlier to catch up on some sleep.
Sunday morning I headed to a gentle yoga class, which was actually chair yoga. As a yoga teacher, I think it is great to take different types of yoga classes to learn how someone teaches. With chair yoga, you have to be more creative and it inspires me.
After a bit of work at the studio, I headed home and ate an early lunch as I just felt like cooking in the kitchen and preparing my food for work Monday. Since I was home by myself, it was nice and peaceful and I worked on cleaning up for Sunday dinner.
With Friday and Saturday being so busy, it was nice to just relax Sunday afternoon. The weather was absolutely beautiful with a light breeze flowing through the house. I worked on packing for Vegas (leaving Wednesday for Blogfest and so excited!!) and worked on my Yin homework.
I was so relaxed laying in bed reading that I actually took a half hour nap. If you know me, I never take naps, unless I am sick. Well my body was just really worn out as I haven’t taken a full rest day in like 10 days (I know completely my fault). The temperature in the room was a perfect 75 degrees for me and I just fell asleep. I woke up feeling a bit more refreshed and then got the idea to quickly whip up a batch of cookies to go with dinner. I substituted the white sugar for a zero calorie sweetener I found in the cupboard, but the cookies turned out delicious.
Last week I shared my workouts from the week and they were a little different due to the holiday so I wanted to share this past week as well. This week I realize I didn’t have a rest day, but I will have 2 rest days this coming week since I am heading to Blogfest Wednesday evening. I had to do a little switching around just due to yin yoga training, so here is a look at my week.
Sunday 7/9: squat day at the gym
Monday 7/10: Bench day at the gym
Tuesday 7/11: Aerial yoga – I learned a new hip key pose!!
Wednesday 7/12: Deadlifts at the gym
Thursday 7/13: Accessory day at the gym (morning), yin yoga (evening)
Friday 7/14: yin yoga session during training – we did INTENSE hip openers for 7 long minutes on one side before doing 7 long minutes on the other side.
Saturday 7/15: squat day at the gym (usually this is Sunday, but switched my yoga and squat day due to yin yoga training) I have to say I love how I can finally go deeper in my squats. Before I could hardly go deep in a body weight squat so I have really improved and strengthened the glutes. I think the yin yoga also left me looser in my hips and helped.
While at first I think I was feeling overwhelmed by the commitment of another teacher training, I was glad to have Sunday to relax. I am also happy to be learning a lot about yin yoga. In just the first weekend, I learned so much, so I am really excited to see what the next 3 weekends of training bring.
Anyone else heading to Blogfest this week?
If you are a yoga person, what is your favorite type of yoga?
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