Yoga

I know, I have a serious post or three promised. And in the works. But I just had a whole bunch of excellent Chinese food and I'm sitting here feeling fat and not very serious, so I figured I'd write about my latest venture into exercise.

I started prenatal yoga classes last night. I'm almost a complete newbie to yoga; I took one class at the Y a couple of years ago, and between sessions being cancelled and me not going, I probably only attended a handful of sessions. I also have a yoga DVD that I like, but let's face it-- with a DVD, you could look like a curly fry and there's no one to correct your alignment. So I consider myself a newbie who at least knows what a downward dog is.

I've heard that yoga is a good exercise for preggo chicks, and it can eventually help with labor and delivery, so I signed up. I also want to stay as active as I can for as long as I can-- I am short and not exactly slender, so I have to be as careful as I can. (Yeah, look back at the first paragraph and note the "whole bunch of excellent Chinese food" comment. Whatever.)

Talking to a friend before I went to the class, she cautioned me to take it easy. "It's prenatal yoga," I scoffed. "It'll be a bunch of fat women sitting around breathing."

HA. I was wrong, like a wrong thing that is totally wrong. It was hard. Hard in a really good way, yes, but hard. The only thing she doesn't really do are poses that are inversions, which makes sense. Otherwise, it was a typical yoga class. I liked that she provided more than one way to do some of the poses, based on where you were in your pregnancy. As the class wore on, I tried to do some of the tougher poses. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. :)

I have never had particularly good balance, nor am I a strong woman who can stay in frozen poses for long periods of time. But I (mostly) didn't embarrass myself, it felt absolutely wonderful to stretch and to push myself, and it was definitely mind-clearing.

Two very big thumbs up. I'm going to make attendance at this class (it's weekly) a priority.

Acupuncture, yoga... If I start buying crystals and chanting, someone needs to smack me.