Lessons learned
1. There is a right side and a wrong side for a yoga mat – We bought a Lululemon reversible mat because it was highly recommended by friends and we wouldn’t need a yoga towel (I got tired of washing those each time). However, I wrongly assumed that the textured side of the mat and not the slick side should be right-side up. My husband kept complaining that he was sliding all over the mat and I just thought it was him. Nope. It was the wrong side.
2. Early morning yoga is awesome – I always thought that evening yoga would be my go-to yoga – a perfect way to unwind at the end of the day and prepare for a restful evening. I wouldn’t have even considered yoga first thing in the morning much less at 5:45am! But due to our current evening and work schedules, this morning time was the only time that we could make work so we did. And it was awesome! Okay, I’ll be honest getting out of bed at 5 wasn’t awesome but being done with an hour of yoga and a mile run by 7am was incredible. Now if we can just get in the habit of going to bed early.
3. Shirtless backs stick to hot yoga mats – Just a heads up on this one. I wasn’t sure why hubs left the room in the middle of class but afterwards he confessed that the suction on the mat is so strong that were doing a pose on our backs, he’s back and the mat created a significant flagellant sound! He chose to put his shirt back on. Not sure if this will go away eventually or not but I don’t think he will risk going shirtless again. 🙂
4. Choose the 5mm not the 3mm mat – I first chose the 3mm Lululemon mat because I thought it the cushion would be sufficient. However as soon as I got home and laid on it and knelled on it, I knew this was not the mat for us. It was exchanged for the 5mm. The extra weight and additional cost are more than worth it.
6. Ask questions – Though teachers always say: “there are no stupid questions”. Yet, I still hesitate to task. Yoga requires that I ask and ask for correction. It is a beautiful thing to be corrected in yoga and then feel how it should be and not how I was mutilating it. I wish I could handle and embrace correction like that in other aspects of my life.
7. Push through the nervousness – This goes into the #EmbraceTheSuck category and deserves a blog post by itself. I’m continually amazed how anxious I can get when trying new things in front of other people. And for someone not flexible and can’t balance on one foot to save my life, yoga is the best and worst thing. Best: lots of room to grow. Worst: you constantly challenge yourself.
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