Yoga at the YMCA

I took a yoga class at the YMCA yesterday. Last night, I cracked my neck a few times before one of the lower pieces did a resounding “CRACK”. I was standing in the kitchen and Bill was sitting at the table about 10 feet away. He looked up at me with a surprised look on his face. “Did you hear that?” I asked, surprised. “Everyone heard that,” he informed me. Excellent.

Today, I woke up feeling a little sore between my shoulder blades. It’s a soreness that tells me I really opened up my back muscles. My posture is better today, and my usual tendency to cock my head to the right is gone. I tell ya, if this continues, I’ll be going back to the YMCA classes. This is fantastic.

The teacher’s name is Carmen. She has a slight accent, though I couldn’t place it exactly. Her face is lined from years of smiling (I LOVE that. I want to look exactly like when I grow up) and her eyes are extremely kind. Before the class she went around and said hello to EVERYONE in the room. Anyone she didn’t know, she stopped, sat down, made beautiful eye contact, and asked if there was anything she should know about us (injuries, sore spots, etc). There were two pregnant ladies in the room, and an extremely cute old lady. She modified each pose for the pregnant people, and I noticed how she wandered the room and ended up next to the cute old lady on the side wall, making sure she was comfortable and safe in her poses.

The room has a new sound floor in it, and Carmen told us how everything in the room was done intentionally. It was placed next to the administrative offices so that positive intentions would permeate into administration. The windows were purposefully places, the room was sound-proofed, and the floor was put in so that vibratory intonations would permeate the moving, opening body and allow more space. Even the color of the room was intentional. I love it.

The one thing I would have liked was for the heat to be turned up about 10 degrees. It was cold yesterday morning and even though I was wearing a coat in the car and on the walk through the parking lot, I wasn’t “warm”, per se. When I dumped my outdoor gear in the locker room I was cold, and I never really warmed up during the class. Muscles relax more when it’s warm, and the extra warmth, especially during this cold spell of days in the single digits and teens, would have been lovely.

The YMCA isn’t the same staid place it was when I was growing up. The classes are interesting and PACKED (you should have seen it at 9:30 yesterday morning, a veritable party) and there’s a wide range of activities for all levels. They have a kid-care place with friendly caregivers (I’ve utilized them in the past), there’s an ice rink, and they’re even building a pool that will open this summer! As long as we’re using our membership, it’s a great bargain. I’m going to do my best to incorporate a yoga class into my weekly schedule; there are a lot of times to choose from, and even a Monday class at 6:30 for runners, focusing solely on hammies, quads, hips, and calves. I’m going to check it out, you can bet on it!