Day 7 : Boracay Bliss



Date : October 7th, Monday
Day : 7

Aaaaaand I am back! And I am in love with Boracay. It is so beautiful. I am definitely going back and i am going back for more than just 2 nights - maybe for 6 or 7 ! Haha. Anyway gotta come back to earn the monies to afford these blissful vacations! So after 3 days and 2 nights of lovely memories, I'm back to the grind in Singapore. But I did manage to fit in yoga on Saturday, October 5th, the resort we were staying at had a session at 9:30 am in the morning and I signed up for it. It was pretty good actually and had a few elements of Ashtanga built in, I enjoyed it. What made it really nice is the venue we practiced in, Surrounded by foliage in a big circular room with a wooden floor and open from all the sides with white flowy curtains swaying in the wind. It was beautiful. When your body gets used to sweating it out in hot yoga, you find the regular non-hot yoga very calming and soothing. Almost like a spa treatment. Almost. The spa at this resort  (Mandala Spa and Villas ) was mind blowing by the way. Ok so that's enough of Boracay talk. Back to my journey now.

We came back on Sunday evening and I was in two minds about going for a class on Monday. I was working from home and didn't want to wake up for a 6 am class. Friends who I went for the trip with were at home and I wanted to spend time with them. So I didn't sign up for a class. I instead said to myself  " anyway the alarm is going to go off at 6 tomorrow morning, you'll wake up, if you feel like going then, go, if not sleep" And so when the alarm went off the next morning,  automatically jumped out of bed, changed and rushed out of the house. Haha. I went to the Orchard studio instead of Raffles, since it's closer to where I live. And Anton was taking Hatha. A face I like and a series I know by heart lightened my mood a little and I woke up from my sleep and got ready to practice.

I found my body a little un-bendy and stiff. Maybe it was early morning, maybe it was because I hadn't done hot yoga in 3 days or maybe it was just in my head. Whatever, I decided to push my body as far as it wants to go and not stress. There were a few asanas I got right and a few that I couldn't balance on.

An asana that I am going to share with you today is Dandayamana Dhanurasana or the Standing Bow Pose: 

                               
                                              [Picture courtesy BikramOrmond.com]


I dread it. I really do. It's the one asana that scares the hell out of me. Yea, I mean of course there are others, but this one just instills this sense of "oh shit" the minute my teachers announce it in class. I have definitely gotten better and have learnt techniques and tips from all my teachers especially Monica, but it just makes me want to cry sometimes. Yes, it affects me so much. I think it's in my head, I just need to get rid of the bias. Anyhow, so this pose requires you to stretch ahead and also lift up your leg by pushing your foot into your hand at the same time. It is a little difficult to get the alignment right and once you have that it is very difficult to keep the balance for a minute. The trick is of course make sure that the kicking and stretching is equal. It is very easy and temping to just reach ahead and stretch your arm. But that not only spoils your alignment and makes it tough to balance for long, but it also defeats the purpose of the pose. Without the kicking the pose is nothing really. I'm getting there, I obviously don't look at beautiful as the picture above, but soon hopefully.

Now while all the other teachers make you do it only once, Monica likes to get things perfect and make you do it twice. So I pray every day I have her class, that she makes us do it only once. But that never happens. Anton also made us do it twice today. But after the class I felt amazing and even more amazing because I was going back home to my friends and not to work! Since I wasn't in a rush, I extended by Savasana by another 10 mins :)

It was a good start to the week and I am glad i kept up my commitment and made it to 7 am class. A big thank you to my very efficient alarm clock !

Namaste

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