Day 5 Bikram Yoga 60 Day Challenge
9:00AM Class 9
After last evening's drama I wasn't quite sure what to expect in this class this morning. Soreness was rampant throughout, and yet once class got started, Molly was teaching, it turned into a very powerful class. I was in good form for all of the postures. Very strong backbend, Triangle, and in the back strengthening series on the floor.
11:00AM Class 10
During Pranayama I knew that I was in trouble in this class. I even considered just leaving the room. That's not gonna happen. As strong and powerful as I felt during the 9AM class, I felt weak. It was a struggle just to stay in the room. So early on I decided that this was not a class to push hard in. I let my body do some of the postures, and completely sat out others. In Standing Head to Knee (Dandayamana - JanuShirasana) I just put all of my weight on my standing leg and concentrated on contracting the thigh muscles as tightly as possible. Skipped Triangle and Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee pose (Dandayamana - Bibhaktapada - Janushirasana). Just didn't have the strength to go there in this class.
Same on the floor series. Basically I would set up for the pose and go into as far as my muscles allowed without pushing very hard. At the end of this class I was finished.
I think that 10 classes in 5 days is enough doubles for this week. Tomorrow and Sunday I'll just do one class during the day and see about picking up doubles again next week.
Day 5 Classes 10
It's really been interesting watching my practice progress through doing doubles. It has certainly kicked the intensity up several notches. I'm farther into every posture at this point than in previous challenges where I've just gone each day. The human body is an amazingly adaptive physical specimen. Begin working out. Push your body to go to its edge consistently and the edge continues to move farther and farther out. Fatigue will also build up more quickly, and without an opportunity to rest and recover any benefit will probably be lost. At this point if I were to continue doing doubles I would just be incurring fatigue and courting injury.
