Mix and Match Yoga

image courtesy of ant217 on flickr
I have had a fun time in the last 24 hours practicing yoga! Yesterday I taught two classes for a client, and today I get to teach one in the opposite part of the state as well. After I got home yesterday I was going to hit Bikram at the studio but it was so beautiful outside! I thought of writeouschick on twitter who practiced outside recently and thought to myself, hey that sounds like a great idea!

I brought my mat and little dvd player outside to the deck, along with some ice water. First I did the lower back therapeutic sequence from my Gary Kraftsow Viniyoga DVD. I'm trying to treat some pain I have with this sequence, because I think one of the best ways to become a therapist is to practice on oneself. Feeling relaxed and loose after that, I changed gears.

Shiva Rea's Yoga Shakti Solar Flow 2 sequence was next. I'm really trying to work on my upper body strength. Thus, I need to get my sun salutation/vinyasa strength up. Bikram is great, but the returns I'm getting are more in the fine tuning area. However when I do a vinyasa based practice, I feel so much work happening for my upper body, a place where I'm notoriously lacking in strength. It's hard to move a body that's overweight through sun salutations. Well, it is if you want to keep your hips up off the floor as you transition to upward facing dog. Shiva Rea moves so fluidly while breathing so easily. Her breathing pace is way different from mine - I'm breathing about twice as fast as she is to do the same amount of work, which throws off the vinyasa rhythm a bit. However, working through handstand (only did setup and some kicks, I didn't want to kick through one of my windows!) some really nice backbend prep work and full wheel variations, etc.

I was hoping to do some backbending up and down the wall after that but ran out of time. I'm hoping tonight is the night for beginning that practice. Coming soon next week... I'm off to New Orleans for a week! Yay!