But can you bend into the shape of a pretzel yet?

(Note: After I finish this post, I'm going to change into my yoga togs for yoga practice #360.  Eeek!!!!)

A continuation of my reflections on some of the questions I asked upon beginning this 360 straight days of yoga practice.  I asked, will I:

• Master more challenging poses that we do once in awhile in yoga class and then don't return to again for several months, so that I never really feel like I've fully learned how to properly execute them? Poses like Bakasana? 

I did Bakasana in my home practice yesterday.  It is one of those poses that sometimes feels like second nature to get into. Then on other days, I feel totally befuddled about where to place my knees against my arms--it just feels not quite right, even if I'm placing the knees in the exact same place as I did the day before, when it felt easier than pie.

Anyway, I do feel like I am more capable and skilled with Bakasana, in general.  Some of the other challenge poses I've worked on in class and at home this year, however, I am a long, long way from comfortable.  Perhaps you remember this one:

Ah, good ole Eka Pada Galavasana... I quit working on this one because I was sick of looking like a battered woman.  The pressure of my foot against my arm gave me bruises that looked like someone had grabbed me really hard.  It wasn't such a big deal when the weather was cool outside, but when tank top weather arrived....  Also, my leg injury sort of put a hamper on this one.  Take-Away Lesson: You can't be Super Woman when you walk with a hobble.

• (Will I) Get my hamstrings to finally open up enough to straighten my legs all the way in Uttanasana or to touch my heels to the ground in Downward-Facing Dog?

My heels still do not touch the ground in Downward-Facing Dog.  Honestly, I never for a second thought they would.  That said, after warming up a little, they definitely get much CLOSER to the ground in Dog pose than they were a year ago.  On the other hand, once warmed up, I really can straighten my legs all the way in Uttanasana now.  I don't choose to very often, because I don't want to lock my knees, but I can do it. For whatever that's worth.

• Stand on one leg with my other foot up by my head without tipping over?

Why yes, I kind of can do this now.  Look!

Utthita Hasta Padangustasana

My foot is kind of by my head, right?  I can't hold this forever, I can't straighten my leg all the way, and the pose has room for lots of improvement in terms of alignment and grace, BUT I can hold it without tipping over.  Sometimes.

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Overall, certain poses are easier now than last January, but my body resists other poses and movements just as much as it always has.  And there are probably poses that are harder for me now than they were a year ago, because of an injury this year or maybe I just haven't been practicing it for awhile.  

-Some poses that are easier: Uttanasana, Bakasana, Baddha Utthita Parsvakonasana, Utthita Hasta Padangustasana, Plank and Chaturanga Dandasana. (I used to HATE these last two poses.  Now I like them. A lot.) Oh and can't forget Ardha Chandrasana--I'm especially proud of my work with Half Moon, a perpetually difficult, painful pose for me!

-Some poses are more difficult now than a year ago: Utkatasana (this one is a be-otch when you haven't been practicing it much), Malasana a.k.a. squat-asana, pigeon pose, Eye of the Needle pose.  I used to LOVE Eye of the Needle, but it causes me a lot of pain on my right side at present, and my motion is quite limited.  

I wonder which of these poses will be easier or more challenging for me at the end of 2011.  The truth of the matter is: Yoga is a process.  There is no grand finale. Everyday presents different obstacles to match the body's capabilities in that moment on the mat.  Yesterday, Bakasana was easy for me.  It might not be easy when I do it today.  Mastery is not holding a pose perfectly day after day.  Mastery is the act of showing up on the mat,  attempting a pose to the best of one's abilities in that moment, and returning the next day to try again.

So many different ways one can bend a pretzel on any given day!

And now, I'm off to find out how my body wants to bend on this, my 360th straight day of yoga practice.  More later!  Namaste!

Day 348.

But sadly, I still don't look like this.

In this post, I continue to reflect on this list of questions I posed when I first began this project, 348 days ago.  I asked, after a year of daily yoga practice, will I:

• Grow a few centimeters in height?

Okay, so to assess whether I grew any in height, I'm employing a highly unscientific method of standing shoeless against a wall, attempting to draw a pencil line in the exact right place at the top of my head, and then using measuring tape to figure the distance from pencil mark to floor. This process is made all the more unscientific by the fact that I didn't measure myself at the beginning of the year.  On my driver's license, it says I'm 5 foot 6 inches tall, but the last time I got measured at the doctor's office proved that I am one of those people who round up to seem taller.  According to the doctor, I was more like 5 foot 5-1/2 inches tall.  ANYWAY, this morning, I measured myself as 5 foot 6-1/8 inches tall.  Hmmm.... Did my pencil mark aim too high?  Was I slouching at the doctor's office?  Or did I grow a little bit?  We'll never know for sure.

Nope, still too short for Splash Mountain!

I also asked, after a year of daily yoga practice, will I:

• Look different--be slimmer or have more muscle bulk?  Be stronger in my core? Be more stable in my pelvis? Have better posture/alignment? Develop those tiny muscles in my inner hips and the arches of my feet to protect my knees and to help stave off genetic physical ailments? Reduce the frequency of migraines? Improve my circulation? Achieve super healthy blood pressure readings?

Let me start by saying that this here body of mine has served me pretty well during my year of yoga. Yes, I've incurred some injuries. I'm happy to report that none of them have been incurred practicing yoga.  I can't put a value on how many injuries I may have avoided by practicing yoga or staved off "genetic physical ailments," but I know that stretching my limbs and building muscle tone protects me a lot when I do high impact aerobic activities, like running, and even doing little things like getting into my car from a funny angle. The body can get hurt in really small, ridiculous ways.  Trust me, I once re-sprained my ankle trying on a ski boot 

Has my body changed? Of course it has, the body is always changing.  Lately, I feel like my core is kind of weak, but it was super strong in June. It is winter after all, and my body and energy cycles just like the seasons. People have remarked on my fantastic posture over the year, but alignment and keeping my pelvis stabilized seem like things that need lifelong attention and continual adjustments.  I don't know if yoga has helped prevent any migraines, though gentle yoga has been soothing when I've had one.  Circulation?  Sure, while I'm actually practicing, but in general?  Who knows?  And my blood pressure readings, they were pretty dang healthy before this year began, and they still are.

So now for the million-dollar question: do I look different, slimmer or have more muscle bulk?  Honestly.... I think I look pretty much the same as I did last January. My clothing sizes haven't changed. My weight has fluctuated within the same 5-pound window all year. That said, my body has never been in as great shape as it has been at times this year.  Particularly in the spring and summer months.  I definitely am stronger than I was last December, even if my core is a little wimpy at present.

And here's the real triumph: I have never felt so secure with this body as is as I have this year.  And sexy.  This body of mine is strong and sexy and I'm so happy to live in it.  The time I spend every day doing yoga allows me to witness and appreciate my body, while it also puts me in touch with what my body needs and what it likes to keep it healthy and happy.  Even when my muscles burn like crazy from holding a challenging pose, yoga feels like the most incredible gift to my body. 

Maybe I do look different.  Maybe I do stand taller.  Maybe the incredible confidence and respect I've developed for my body on the inside has transformed how I appear on the outside, in ways that have nothing to do with slimness, muscle mass, or the number on the scale. 

Namaste!

AND we’re under the 30-day mark…

Actually, we're under the 24-day mark.  Or I am.  My 360 days of Adho Mukha Svanasana is officially winding down.  Today marks my 336 straight day of yoga practice.  The end of the tunnel is in sight, though honestly, this journey has never felt anything like an endless tunnel.  Predictably, the first month was the hardest, because it takes time to adjust to a new daily time commitment.  Now, it is so automatic and normal, that I’m almost scared to go that minimum 30 minutes of yoga a day.

When I took on this challenge in January, I had a big list of questions about what I might experience by doing yoga every day.  Over the next three+ weeks, I want to revisit some of those questions here in the bloggity-blog.  You can read my initial two blog posts with ALL of those questions here and here.  One caveat: it is impossible to know how much of any change I’ve undergone in the last 336 days has been a result specifically of doing yoga—in many cases, yoga is one of many things that may have facilitated a change. The best way to test daily yoga’s effect on me would be to stop doing yoga every day, and even then, NOT doing yoga would likely be one of many things that might facilitate a change.  Still, I want to try to answer my questions to gauge the impact of this year-long experience!  So let’s get started with the mother of all questions:

• After a year of daily yoga practice, will I feel happier? More balanced and patient? Calmer? Less anxious?

Wow.  This is really hard to answer.  See, when I began this process, I had already begun a kind of remarkable transformation in terms of my mental health.  Seriously, if you were to turn back the clock and look at me not 360 days, but 720 days ago, you would think you were looking at my twin sister: my totally depressed, anxious, high-strung, impatient twin sister.  My Debbie Downer twin could not have committed to practicing yoga every single day, no matter how much she already loved yoga and how often she did yoga.   

So, in the year leading up to beginning my yoga 360, I made a lot of tough, painful decisions, took some big risks, and began to change my life on many, many fronts.  It was a really hard year, but I got through it and came out a much stronger, smarter, healthier person.

When 2010 began, I had only recently begun to feel like I was standing on solid ground, or rather like I could keep my footing on the ever-shifting ground below me.  I was feeling happier than I had in a really long time.  I felt only a shadow of the perpetual anxiety that had been clouding my thoughts and actions for the majority of my adult life.  I was just getting the idea of what a balanced life might feel like, that it was something I could actually have, that it was something I wanted.  Basically, I was finally in a place where I felt capable of truly committing to something long term; thus began my year of yoga.

I don’t know if doing yoga every day has made me any happier than I was last December.  But it definitely has not made me LESS happy.  Yes, I’ve had days this year when I’ve felt like nothing good would ever happen to me again, days when I’ve felt like anxiety was ripping me up inside.  But I’ve also had days this year when I’ve felt unadulterated joy and satisfaction that I’m alive, days when my mind can’t recall what it is to worry about something.  On most days of this past year, though, I haven’t been extremely sad or happy, but fine, okay-to-good, more or less satisfied.  I think this is what it looks like to have a balanced life. 

I absolutely believe that my yoga has helped me sustain this balance in my life.  If I come to my mat in a ridiculously giddy mood, I generally find myself settling down over the course of my practice, reigning in my happiness a bit so that I may maintain it longer, and so that it isn’t such a shock to my system when something undesirable happens.  Likewise, if I come to my mat in a real foul mood, my practice helps redirect my focus: things might suck, but at that moment, I’m paying attention to my balance.  The brief reprieve from my troubles that yoga’s temporary shift in focus provides always leaves me calmer and better prepared to face what ever has my panties in a bunch.  Yoga evens my keel when I’m tipping too much to one side of the other.  Most days, my practice mirrors and affirms my fine, more-or-less satisfied mental space, like breathing or blinking.  It is a part of what keeps me regular.

So whether or not daily yoga this year has made me MORE anything, it definitely was involved in helping me STAY happy, calm, patient, and balanced.

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Minutes for the accountability police.  Yes, practiced every day.  Here's the rough round up:

11/8-11/14: 305

11/15-11/21: 315

11/22-11/28: 235

11/29-12/7: 285

Namaste!