“If you’re going to live, you might as well do painful, brave and beautiful things.” – The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner
I’ve got to admit that the workouts in the first week have been quite a struggle for me. I can do them, and I really do see my progress, but by the end, I’m pretty tired. And my shoulder hurts. But won’t it be a beautiful thing when I finally nail my handstand? And aren’t I a brave soul for continuing to try even thought it’s hard? I mean, I could very easily quit doing this. Nobody’s watching me. Kyle won’t be standing there shaking his head in disappointment if I decide to give up.
And I have plenty of excuses besides the aforementioned pain in my shoulder. I’ve also started a new job and between that and teaching yoga, it’s hard to find time to do the workouts. Waah, waah, waah. It occurred to me tonight that I can conceivably do the workouts at home during lunch. They only take 45 minutes, I don’t get sweaty, so there’s really nothing to keep me from doing it on days I don’t have lunch appointments. OK, we got that out of the way.
Truth be told, I was getting a little discouraged about the “jump tuck” part of the sequence at the very end of the workout — mainly because I wasn’t able to do them. You’re on your hands and knees, lift your hips to the ceiling and then lift your hips up over your shoulders with the idea of hanging there. I tried and tried and tried, but no hanging.
I refused to give up and after resting for a bit, I went upstairs (thinking a change of scenery might make a difference) and tried again. No dice. I remembered that several years ago when I was at one of the Colorado yoga conferences, I felt myself get hang time doing the jump tucks. So it stands to reason that if I could do it before (when I was considerably weaker), I could do it again. I psyched myself up to try one more time starting in Downdog and then shifting my weight forward as I lifted my feet. Much better. Nothing like what Kyle was doing in the workout, but at least I did feel a teensy bit of hang time. I’m going to do it again tomorrow.
I do want to mention that when we did the jump ups/switching your legs/lightly landing thing right before the jump tucks, I nailed it. Even had a little hang time. Guess that means I’m not a total handstand loser. Ha!
