Yoga+Jazz=WipeOut

But it's a good wipe out.

I've been doing okay in Jazzercise lately...able to hold my own for the most part. But there are a lot of classes where I'm just fatigued and sore during class and don't have the flexibility I'd like.

So I decided to try doing a yin yoga practice before Jazz by way of a warm-up. Yin yoga is a style that calls for holding poses for 5 minutes or so (or working up to that if you need to), and relaxing every muscle that you don't need to hold the pose. It's pretty darn hard. You have to take an inventory of your body during the pose and figure out if you need each muscle. If not, then you make it relax. The good part of all of that is that having the muscles relaxed allows the fascia to stretch. And when you get those deeper tissues stretching you get a very nice, fluid feeling in your body. I just started doing some yin yoga this weekend I like it very much. I've been doing a sequence I found in The Yoga Journal. Here is the link: Sweet Surrender.

So anyway, I did the practice Sunday by itself and then decided to try it last night before Jazz. It was a great experience! With the exception of a little muscle over my right hip, I felt great through the entire class. But man was I tired when I got home! And sore. I took a couple of Tylenol before bed last night to ease the sore muscles and slept like a baby. I'm going to see if I can get Mensa Boy to do some of those poses too. I think he'd find it would help his running a bit.

So it's raining today. Bear was not interested in going outside, so we did the backyard thing rather than trudging around the block in the rain. The garden looks joyful this morning as it soaks up the water.