Day 3

If you're über keen, you may notice there is no Day 2. That's because about 6 months ago, I signed up for a little race called Tough Mudder. I went into this yoga course knowing I had to miss the second day of classes once they started.

If you're not familiar with Tough Mudder, I would highly suggest checking it out and immediately adding it to your bucket list (before you can talk yourself out of it). It's an 10-12 mile run littered with 25 separate mental & physical obstacles that challenge every aspect of your being.....oh yeah, and a lot of mud. 

>>Before & After<<

When your bruised and bleeding body crosses that finish line after pushing your body, physically & mentally, to it's absolute extreme, you feel like a champion. 

But do you know what you don't feel like doing?

7 hours of yoga the very next morning.

...let's talk about that.

Day 3

I get to class, and we start with a solid hour of yoga at 10AM. My already fraying & splintering muscles begin shaking after the first 5 minutes. Must. Keep. Going.

And I do.

After an hour of what ended up being a full body vibration, we dissect The Flow.

The Flow

Plank

Chaturanga Dandasana

Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward-Facing Dog)

Chaturanga Dandasana (Downward-Facing Dog)

I have an "Ah-ha!" moment during the plank dissection. Shoulders & Hips aligned. I've heard this probably hundreds of times before, but today, it resonated. 

Ah-ha!

Later on, we had a session with the incredible yogi, German (pronounced: "Her-main")

Meet German A. Bravo-Casas. 

He shined some insightful light on us for hours today.

This man has been teaching yoga for 41 years.

Simple. 

Brilliant.

He worked at the United Nations for 22 years and when he retired, he decided to start a yoga club there. To this day, he is the President of the United Nations Yoga Club at the United Nations. I hope all of the world leaders do yoga with him, it could do this planet a lot of good!

There were 2 nuggets of wisdom that emerged from his twirling, Colombian accent that I liked most:

1) "The Human mind jumps around, like a monkey, and is never satisfied. Yoga fights that. When you have full control of your breath, you have full control of what you're trying to perform. And when you have full control of what you're trying to do, nobody can control you." 

2) "Reading a menu in a restaurant doesn't make you full just like yoga books won't give you all you need. You must practice. The main purpose is not to become a pretzel, it's not about flexibility  It's about awareness."

I'm so thankful he took the time to share his experiences, knowledge, and insights with our class!  

Oh! One more thing!

I must not forget to share one of my favorite things that he shared with us...he passed around the book below, mentioning that it was one of his favorite yoga books:

If you know me, you probably know how much I loved this! This confirmed the hypothesis that I've formed surrounding the idea that I believe most yogi's are cat people. 

Namaste.