Yin

Today was a total bliss-out day. I woke this morning and resolved that the day would truly be a Friday full of Goodness. To start, I walked the dog for an hour in the sunshine. The weather is warming up, finally.

My practice was interesting. Using the CD I bought at the Yoga Show, I did Journey Dance for an hour and then segued right into a vinyasa-style Hatha practice. I'm loving the dancing. It makes me keen to try Nia, which I've heard is similar, but a bit more structured.

Yoga, even Astanga, is static even when it's flowing; it's rooted in stillness. It's a nice change to move my body in a flowing, fluid, continuous way. I broke into a sweat, moved erratically across the floor. I found myself deeply and intimately connected with my breath in a way that's different from my experience of breath in yoga.

It's hard to describe. I didn't notice this connection when I was doing Journey Dance in the big group (perhaps because I was so aware of the other people and energies swirling around me). On the Journey Dance CD, Tony Bergins is constantly talking about breathing, urging you to move with the breath and allowing the breath to move you; the breath is the focal point and the movement emerges from it. I like this. A lot. I found that it brought me into a deep connection with my breath as I moved into yoga practice from the dance.

As I moved in vinyasa, I found myself moving around more. I started waving my arms back and up during the sun salutations a la Shiva Rea and I finally started to *understand* that approach to flow yoga. I really enjoyed the feeling of my body moving in space. (After I finished my practice, I found myself swaying around as I did the dishes, swept the floor.).

After vinyasa and a few standing poses, I moved into Yin Yoga. This is a type of yoga that I haven't explored a lot. I know that other Astangis are interested in it (Arturo mentions it in his blog). I used my timer and focused on holding poses for 90 seconds.

At the Yoga Show, I chatted with the Yin Yoga guy. He was explaining that it takes 90 seconds for the fascia and connective tissues around a muscle to release. I seem to have come to a plateau in my flexibility and I'm wondering if this may help me move past that. I enjoyed it, sort of. 90 seconds feels like a long time. ;-)

The rest of the day was just decadent. It's kind of a tradition with me to go out for lunch on Good Friday. Years ago, restaurants were closed on Good Friday, but things have loosened up. It seemed like the entire city was out and about. I ran into two friends as I biked around the city.

I went out for lunch and ended up having Caesars while we waited for the food. Then wandered around Kensington Market and on the way home, stopping at Futures for chocolate cake.

Anyway...all of this to say, it really was a Good Friday.