What a marvelous thing Yoga is.  Yesterday I was quite depressed, to the point that I didn't even want to start my evening practice.  I knew, however, that I would sleep better if I did it; so, without much enthusiasm I started.  This morning I woke up at my customary 4:40 AM and when I stepped into the shower at 5:30 I felt completely alive.  My day hasn't been any better than the others this week other than that I feel alive and full of energy and that, to me, is a tremendous thing.

During my practice this morning a couple of things happened.  Rodney Yee talks in his book Yoga:  Poetry of the Body about his body asking for him to do certain poses, prompting him to focus on specific areas or groups of poses.  This morning my body felt like I should focus on my upper body.  I threw the upper body workout in the DVD player and off I went.  I hadn't done this workout yet but I just thrilled right through it!  It was simply amazing.  One pose is an incredibly difficult (for me) back bend.  You lie on your back, feet hip width apart and as close to your butt as you can get them.  Put your palms flat on the floor next to your ears and press up into an arch.  Every time that I tried this (it's done three times in this workout) I'd flop flat on my back.  I failed to do more than barely get my head off the ground and it was great and terribly fun!  In fact, I can't wait to do that workout again.

I think I'll start an early evening practice now.  McKenna saw me reading Rodney's book and started bouncing up and down and saying, “Are you going to do Yoga?  Can we do it too?” over and over and over.  She reminded me a little of a small yipping dog that wants to go out for a walk.  So, while Shanna was getting ready to go out to a dinner meeting she had, the kids and I did Yoga together.  Actually, they giggled and bounced and made spectacles of themselves as they tried to do the poses while I practiced focusing on my practice and we all had a blast doing it.

I haven't had much time for Yoga yesterday or today and boy can I tell.  I'm not putting anything more down tonight so I can at least get one practice under my belt today.

Irritating, looks like I don't quite have the template setup correctly.

I realized something profound as I practiced last night, it was a true epiphany.  Unfortunately, I did not write it down and it's gone.

PS, the template is fixed.  The fix was fairly easy but too complicated to post here.  Suffice it to say that it's fixed.

I just finished my lunch hour practice. Unfortunately, either because of early work schedules or sleeping people in the family room, I have only been able to practice once this week; well, twice now.  I already feel much improved, even by just a quick fifteen minute session.

I just finished up my evening practice.  I feel like my whole body just finished a very long and sensual yawn.  Speaking of yawning, breath is always mentioned as an important part of Yoga.  My practice tonight has helped me to begin to appreciate, just a little bit, the why behind the importance of breath.  My hamstrings are very tight and so standing and seated forward bends do not involve a great deal of bending where I am concerned.  Tonight as I bent into forward bend, I would breath deeply and as I exhaled I bent a little further and by the end of the pose, I found my nose between my knee caps.  Better, there was no extra discomfort and no muscle pulls!  This makes me want to look into some beginning paranayama (breathing) practices.

I am also beginning to feel restless in my practice.  I think that I may begin trying to do my own personal practice instead of only doing what is shown in the DVD practices.  Because the DVDs are very good and I am still not even a novice in this, the DVDs will remain the central part of my Yoga practices but perhaps twice a week I will practice on my own.  Should be interesting.

McKenna has been at me since I came home to do some Yoga.  Only problem is that I am still very full from lunch.  I am very glad that she wants to be involved in my practice though.

Things were not pretty last night.  As soon as I had the room ready (a small couch has to be moved for more than on person to practice) George decided that all the time that he was so sedate with the chicken pox had given him license to be an absolute terror (Shanna tells me that he was that way all day yesterday).  By the time I was ready to begin again, someone called hawking family oriented videos.  By the time I was ready for attempt #3, George was in full swing again.  Instead of beating him to a pulp (oh, the temptation) I banished everyone to the upstairs and got ready for attempt #4.  I really don't remember what happened after that other than two things:  I told the professional fire-fighters to stop calling us for hand outs as we do what we can to support our local volunteer fire fighters and I scalded the knuckles on my right hand — very, very painful.

This morning I tried practicing using a mat.  I'm not sure whether I like it or not but I am sure that it is not love at first use.  It's just too slick when my hands and feet sweat.  It does get stickier after being washed down (tried that at the end of my practice).  We'll see if my mind changes over the next week.

During our weekly trip to the library, I picked up three books on Yoga.  One is called, "Be A Frog, A Bird, Or A Tree."  These are creative poses for children by Rachel Carr.  The kids just loved it and I had a blast doing the poses with them.  All of the poses are named for fun things, for example a variation on the squat is called the frog.  Speaking of the frog, George hopped and croaked all around the room as we did this pose.  Great fun and if you have kids, this is a great way to get on the same level with them.

As I said earlier, I washed my mat this morning and tonight it made a great addition to my practice.  It made grounding my feet much easier and I felt much more stable in all my poses.  It's still going to take some time to adjust to using the mat in staff, child or seated leg stretch because the whole mat tends to bunch up under either my outstretched leg(s) or arms.

My favorite part of the Easter festivities is the boiled eggs, usually.  This year it is playing tic-tac-toe with Jona and then having him come down and practice yoga with me.  Jona remembered the sequence of poses from Rachel Carr's book and was terribly excited to be a rocking horse!