Good Yoga Day

I also had a good day exercising yesterday. I started the day with a walk (about a mile and a half - so more than I have been doing... I could have, and should have, done more...). Then my yoga class was GREAT! It was the last class of the session and we always do a half handstand in the last class or two each session. All that is is you do a downward facing dog pose with your heels against a wall - then you pick your feet up and place them on the wall. I have NEVER been able to get both of my feet off of the ground. Last session (so the one that ended in March) I did manage to shift my weight in such a way that I felt like I was pretty darn close to succeeding - but that was still with one foot on the ground. However, YESTERDAY - I didn't get my second foot onto the wall but I DID get it off the ground. I sat (perched) there with one foot flat on the wall and the second one flapping about eight inches in the air. It was flapping because I couldn't place it on the wall because the first foot was slipping... But for a few seconds my body was suspended sort of upside down. ME! All 250 pounds of middle aged ME!!

All that said - plank is still harder IMO.

BUT in this very same session I managed to - and this is really stupid, but I can't do it - go from a squat position (normal frog squat - toes turned out, heels (mostly) down and elbows braced between your knees (nice groin stretch) to downward facing dog. It shouldn't be a hard move, but usually by the time we get to that point in the class, my joints are aching and I have muscle fatigue. My biggest problem I think is that I have little faith in the strength of my shoulders and arms. So anytime I have to put my weight on my arms, I don't do it with confidence - and so I fail. And I am not talking putting a LOT of weight there. I mean, all you are doing is stepping back with your legs and pushing back with your arms, but it is usually too much coordination for me.

We didn't do plank yesterday. I wonder if I would have been able to pull it off if we had...

I had my second pottery class yesterday. I like the teacher. This was the first class with the actual teacher. He has red curly hair that he wears in a pony tail - so off the bat he is the type of person I like. He seems to have a pretty laid back personality, and was verbally encouraging to all of us. No matter what kind of crap we were producing, he is VERY good at pointing out the good features of the pots. That, I think, is really important to for a beginning class of any type - focus on the good, not the bad. We all KNOW it is bad, we want to hear where we are doing it right. He told me that I had good trimming technique AND he asked whose pots were these (mine) and that they were really good. I have to say - I really think that the years spent making glass beads has helped with the pottery. I have no problem holding my arms and body very steady and still. Maybe photography has helped too - because I have no problem supporting one hand with the other braced somewhere else. Hee hee. Next week we are learning handles. We are also going to do a lidded pot and a pitcher. He said that way we could produce a tea set (in theory...).