I am still a bit flabbergasted by my doc’s call today, but I’m trying to build a bridge to get over it. I’ll keep writing down what I eat and go talk to her next Monday and get the test re-done. This is great for my No Sugar Week. Today was another success with no sugar passing through my lips. Oh yeah…woot woot! I’m on a roll. Anyhoo…moving on…
I woke up on Sunday while the professor was still sleeping and figured it was a great time to try my new Ashtanga Yoga DVDs that came last week. I popped in disk 1 of 3 and was excited to get a good workout/stretch to start my day. The title of the disk is Introduction to Ashtanga. I figured, ok an introduction dvd, shouldn’t be too tough right? Wrong! Dead wrong! I cannot belive Richard Freeman and his wacky interpretation of an “introduction.”
I also have to say that he is pretty boring and the video looks like it was made in the 70s with a blue background and trees that appear to be made out of clouds. Also, he has a very odd way of explaining poses and describing what you should be doing. For example, he says, “and then you should feel your kidney lift….” and he keeps referring to moving my kidney’s or spreading my kidney (can you do that?). I just don’t get it.
Besides the overall look of the video, which is pretty cheesy, I cannot believe how hard this first DVD is…and this is suppose to be the EASY one! I tried taking a couple pictures of the crazy poses, but I’m not sure it captures how hard this DVD really was. I can barely touch my toes, so I sure as hell am not ready for this…
…or this…
Yeah…he went from downward dog, into standing straight up with his hands on the mats, lifted himself up and went into sitting position. If you can tell his feet are not on the floor, he is bringing them between his hands so that he can sit down on his tushie with his legs straight out on the ground. He would also go from sitting cross-legged into an upward dog. I don’t bend these ways! Richard, you one crazy yoga man!
I would have felt better if there would have been some options for poses if you weren’t as flexible, but there really weren’t…other than just sitting while he continued to go deeper into poses I couldn’t do. I managed to get through about 45 minutes of the video, but gave up when I couldn’t do pose after pose after pose.
I will try this video again, but even if I did it every day for 3 weeks (the time Richard says it may take to master these poses) I still don’t think I would be able to follow. So I am still on the hunt for some good yoga videos. I haven’t done my MTV power yoga, yoga, or pilates video in a while, so maybe I will pop that in the next time I don’t feel like going to the gym. I enjoy the p90X yoga as well, but I wanted a new and exciting video and got more (or less?) than I bargained for with Richard Freeman’s box set.
Do you have any good yoga DVD recommendations? I think I need a yoga for dummies video or a surgery where they can replace my tight muscles and ligaments with new uber stretchy ones!
I would really like to have some options because I am finding the teachers at my gym often do the same routine and I can picture it getting old. Since I need to work on my flexibility in order to run more without injury, I don’t want to give up on yoga like I have so many times in the past. I don’t think I’ll be turning into Gumby any time soon, but hey…a girl can dream.
