Negative self-talk is a lose-lose situation

GT Enlightened Kombucha bottle

I woke up this morning, and realized I have quickly fallen into a morning “yoga” routine. Out with the work routine, in with working out:

• Wake up around 8am
• Drink water
• Get dressed
• Gather towel, mat, frozen water bottle
• Go.

It was another full class today. Tomorrow the studio is returning to its normal schedule {with more than one class offered daily}. Tomorrow, I will also be returning to my typical kettlebell workout schedule, which was thrown off because of Memorial Day.

my 15lb & 25lb kettlebells

You see, before I had even heard of Bikram Yoga, my new inspiration [once again, care of my mom and dad] was a kettlebell workout at a local kettlebell studio. I started last June, and have been going three times a week ever since. We practice snatches, turkish get-ups. pull ups, push ups, plyometrics, and many minutes of kettlebell swings. I have unfortunately not been as pumped about my kettlebell workouts as I have been about my yoga, but really, both workouts help me mentally and physically, leading to better practice and strength overall.

Last years birthday present - 7ft slideboard

Another lost interest of mine is my Ultraslide Board which is another great workout tool, where you slide side-to-side. It’s a lovely piece of equipment, and I’m happy to say I did use it yesterday for 20 minutes, and hope to continue using it several times a week.

Anyhow, back to class 38 of my Bikram Yoga practice, day 3 in a row...

It was a full class, and my mom also joined me. I was more distracted today, for many reasons. There was a new man who came in today, very lean and tall [what you may call a stereotypical yoga body]. He came in right when class started, positioning himself in front of me {luckily where I could still see myself in the mirror}. When the instructor was showing him Pranayama, and specifically said, “don’t do it, just watch me,” the man seemed to ignore him, looking at himself and at the floor. Fast forward to the postures; the man was going into postures quite deeply, but everytime the instructor corrected him, he really didn’t do anything to fix it. No matter how many times he was told to “lock your knee,” “keep your arm above your head,” he just didn’t. It did appear however, that this was not his first ever Bikram class, and I’m not one to judge, but for whatever reason, his lack of whatever-it-was kind of bugged me [let it go...]

Today was another great reminder that there will always be countless distractions, and that I need to continue my practice despite it all. I plan to do kettlebells and Bikram Yoga tomorrow. Until then, here's a great video clip of Bikram demonstrating triangle