Bad news

I got the Yin Yoga DVD for Christmas (my mum found a UK supplier, which totally shamed me because I never even thought of looking!).  I tried it a few times and love it, it’s not focussed on muscles and strength but I’ve over 20 years of dance lessons which all focussed on muscles and strength, so I needed something new.  It’s about connective tissues, and I’m intrigued to see if it will be able to loosen up my hip joints (or whether my bone structure just says no to that happening).

I’ve tried each of the series on the DVD, but (as I just mentioned) I’m interested in the hip one mostly.  So last week I got it out again after a bit of a break because I was starting to feel a bit more active.  I’m getting a bit more of a feel for balance between getting stuff done and spending time reflecting. I did the hip series, but this time I got a tightness in my chest.  Now this feeling is not new.  I sometimes get it when stretching my glutes.  Well, I was getting it in a number of different positions, so I just rubbed my chest which seems to help relieve it, came out of the pose if it got too much, and kept going.

I then spent the week feeling crappy and run down.  I look ill, though I’ve no yucky symptoms; my calves and biceps ache (despite not really using them) and I’m tired.

Good news

It turns out that the tightness in my chest is a message that crap is being shifted, and I just worked it out.  This is a good thing, because now I have a clear way to query how my body is doing. I can do yoga in the future and if I feel the tightness coming on I can reduce what I’m doing to loosen up a little without killing myself for a week, and if it doesn’t come on I know that I can really release into the postures (still being careful of course).

One more bit of info in the journey of learning to listen to myself.

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