Aim True - Day 8 (& happy birthday to YOU!)

Oh, backbends.  I had forgotten how much I adore you.

Today I took this class.

Oh, soooooooooooo good. So, so, SO good. Click the link, sign up for YogaGlo, and try it.


Heat Building Backbend Flow
Vinyasa Flow 
Level 2
Kathryn Budig

Find your balance of strength and surrender to break on through to the other side with backbends. This heat building flow digs deep into the chest and hip flexors to prep the body for King Dancer and Scorpion. 

• I originally took this class on May 16, 2011. It was posted on YogaGlo on May 4, 2010.
• 8/85 classes complete (yes, they keep multiplying...)
• 4/8 classes I had taken at least once before.

I may have cheated today. No, no, no, I didn't listen to the class whilst in child's pose. I swear. But I did get a massage today after I taught my Saturday AM class. A luxurious, relaxing, knots-be-gone deep tissue massage that left me feeling like jello. YUM. I struggle with overuse issues in my shoulders, but especially in my right shoulder (and I think it's because my right elbow hyper extends if I'm not careful, and it feels directly related to the strain and ache I sometimes get just to the left of my right shoulder blade) and the last time I got a massage I was sad to hear that my muscles were supple everywhere but around my right rhomboid connector, where it was stringy and clumpy. Ugh. But the last time I got a massage was last March, and I'm pretty sure that if you teach and practice as much yoga as I do, you probably need massages way more often. =) I told my massage therapist where I was noticing issues, and boy did she work it out. I think the attention to my shoulders made this heart and shoulder opening class feel amazing three hours later.

Heart-openers are SO exhilarating. If I'm tuned into it, the buzz I feel after releasing from King Dancer is blissful and exciting. Kathryn teaches backbends so ridiculously well - I'd say they are her forte when it comes to her teaching. She is the reason I love them now - a year ago I thought they were scary. Now they are just good. Like a really good steak cooked to perfection on my Le Creuset grill pan, topped with a caramelized onion and mushroom red wine reduction finished with real, fresh butter. (I may or may not have had this for dinner last night.) Both are heaven.

I got super sweaty during the flow of this class. And man, I feel like I spent a long time in Crescent (Kirpalu Warrior 1) Pose, doing a million variations that required my core to stay completely engaged. I'm going to be sore tomorrow. But you really have to build that kind of heat in the legs to get the best release in the backbends - it's true.

Nick & I on my birthday in 2009. I <3 BIRTHDAYS!

I took Kathryn's suggestion to end in Legs Up The Wall, and man, that was a REALLY good way to finish the class. I could have stayed there for much longer, but I have to get ready to go out for sushi with my dear friend Devin! Poor me, right? =) I could just cry myself a river. Hahahaha.

My sister loves birthdays, too.

I'm feeling lucky today, and blessed, and grateful. I was inspired by this article, which is really super-cheesy, but also kind of an awesome idea. While I don't talk to the universe the way the author does, or necessarily buy into the whole idea that you get what you ask for (people don't normally ask to get cancer, or to have a loved one die, etc.) I do know the Birthday Feeling she is talking about, and I agree, I'd like to live every day with that Birthday Feeling of excitement and gratitude. If you know me you know that birthdays - ALL birthdays, my own and everyone else's, are my absolute favorite holiday. I even talked about how my mom made birthdays ridiculously special when I spoke at her funeral in 2004. Birthdays were always THAT special in our family.

So here's to the the Birthday Feeling every single day: excitement, happiness and LOVE!

(Don't mind me. I'm high on backbends, apparently!) =)

ps - Rhian's candles lie, by the way. If she had Madeline when she was 23, which she did, how is Madeline in the photo at approximately 4 years old on what appears to be Rhian's 22nd birthday? Hmmm..... ;)