Yoga and feeling zen like

I went to Yoga and our instructor read to us in Sanskrit (and translated of course).  My yoga instructor reads and speaks Sanskrit, that's very cool.

I was looking for a Yoga teacher that would do more than just the normal postures and it seems I found one.

I'm feeling very Zen like. Well this was after the class. During the class I felt like I would huff and puff and blow the place down, twisting and holding my body into positions that I'm not sure should be legal. Will I ever be able to do this and look calm and serene, graceful and lightfooted all at the same time? 

I'm like a baby heffalump at the moment... "I'm sorry, is it me making those noises / causing the earth to move?" 

This is not easy, but I'm going to stick with it as I feel so good afterwards.  Zen like.

Yoga antics

I've been threatening to start taking Yoga classes for a while now and after checking out a few websites decided to join a free trial class... to see what it was about.  I have done all of 3 yoga classes in my life and I wanted something more than what the gym offers in terms of personalised assistance and focus on the philosphy behind the practice.  I was quite young and naive at my first yoga class and I thought imaging white lights coming off the top of my head was a pretty funny sight, hence it never really grabbed hold of me.  Lately however, I have realised the value of taking care of body, mind and spirit - and I think yoga is just the right thing for that.

I even managed to convince my partner to do it with me.  At 07:30 am we started off with a lovely sun salute.  A nice touch was that we dedicated our practice to another person - to learn the art of doing things for other people.  Easing ourselves into our first class, focusing on the breathing.  I can do this.

The exercises started to get progressively harder and more challenging.  I started to struggle with my breathing. I was inhaling when I should have been exhaling, and vice versa, or worse, forgetting to breathe and then doing a quick inhale exhale to get the right breath.  The people were breathing so loudly too... I was too self conscious to do that, and when I did it was purely out of struggling to control it.  Things started to happen very quickly then. It was downward dogs, lunge, cobra, plank, pushups - triangles, worriers, chairs, forward bends and impossible body twists (how the heck?!)  Not necessarily in this order. These are called Asanas.  Every muscle was being stretched to within an inch of it's life, begging for mercy. 

Then we did dolphin pose - aah I thought, that sounds nice, sounds soothing. HAH that was deceiving.  My shoulders never worked that hard in their life.  Some people went further and did a headstand - yoh yoh.

Upon leaving, at least 3 cm taller than when I arrived, I'm sure, my partner and I decided that we'd like to do these asanas with such ease and grace as well and decided to sign up for a couple of classes.  Even though my man looked like he'd been steam rollered.

It should get easier as we go along! It was fun.

Impi Warrior 2012 - Stretching mind and body

I did the Impi Challenge!

Wow, I'm really good at regular blogging (not).  31 March 2012 I became an Impi Warrior... I did this by completing a 12 km obstacle course challenge, crawling under obstacles, through tunnels, over obstacles (did I mention my fear of heights?), swimming through rivers, squishing through mud and more mud.

That morning I was driven to the event feeling a bit like a lamb being led to the slaughter.  I had tried exactly one trail run (first ever) 2 weeks previously and had planted myself in the ground on the trail, leaving me with a very sore knee and elbow.  I was seriously worried about this event. I am known for falling over my own two feet.  I had tried a few times the week before to chicken out of the event, but alas, no one would sympathise with my tales of me not being fit enough and instead I was encouraged to just do it... Yeah, easy for you to say I thought...my insides quivering at the thought of the heights my body and mind would need to endure.

The first obstacle was a freezing cold river of water that we had to wade through, initiating us into this crazy event.  The rest of the race passed by in a haze...we proceeded on over cargo nets, crawled through tunnels, leopard crawled under logs, climbed up and down ravines, crossed rivers over single beams, cargo nets, ropes, swam and jumped from heights I'd rather not recall, crawled through mudpits that smelled of dung, climbed over walls that you would never get over without the assistance of teammates ...  Oh and we ran in between all the obstacles too.

Then about halfway through the event I realised how much fun I was having.  I was having such a great time getting down and dirty I almost forgot about the heights that I knew I'd have to face (getting high and dry?!)...  Alas... at the 10m high obstacle climb there was a queue of people waiting to up and over...which was absolutely detrimental to my fear of heights.  The longer we stood there, my stomach churning, the longer my mind had to convince me that it really didn't have to conquer this fear.  It was my turn eventually.  Very gingerly I climbed up onto the first rung of the ladder, leading up to the cargo net.  With the help of my team members I made it up onto the cargo net... and just there my familiar fear completely took over and I could move no further.  I was causing a backlog of impi warriors at this stage... and my mind shut down and I had to admit defeat and get myself off the cargo nets.  Even though it was more scary (for anyone not suffering from this fear) to climb back down than it was to proceed forward, I easily wormed my way back down as fast as possible back to terra firma.  On the way down I passed a guy who was obviously having the same issue as I had and I gave him the courage to join me on the descent down...So I was not happy with myself.  I was pretty darn emotional about it because I'm really struggling to get over these fear issues in my life.  But this obstacle will have to wait... I'll do it yet!

Overall it was an absolutely terrific event, one that I will definitely do again!  The team work was just fantastic and we had our friends come out and support us which was just awesome!  Thanks to them, they were able to convince me to send myself barelling off a 6m high jump into the river below!!

What a day it was!  I learnt alot about myself, and I know the fear I felt at the 10m high obstacle is the same fear that I need to conquer in the other areas of my life, in order to move onward and upward!  Here's to next year!

Some kind of madness

A few weeks ago the friends suggested that we do the Impi Challenge.  So I googled it and thought to myself it looks tough and I wasn't sure about this. http://impichallenge.co.za/category/gauteng/

12 km obstacle race, 17 extreme obstacles...through fierce obstacles, mud and extreme trails...

I mulled over the idea of entering this mad race and asked myself why I'd think of doing this - I'm SO scared of heights, don't enjoy running in wet, squishy shoes and the idea of crawling through mud is almost too much to bear.  Then that week a 39 year old colleague of mine had to have an emergency heart operation and had a stent placed in her heart.  This is after battling with breast cancer two years ago.  And the answer was clear... I have my health, I have the ability (well, so I thought and please note, I didn't say fitness level) and the only thing standing in my way of doing this was my FEAR. With all the work I'm currently doing with fear in my life I just couldn't let that stand in my way.  What is fear anyway?  False Evidence Appearing Real.  I couldn't let fear stop me from doing this when there are people fighting real and ongoing battles in their lives.

The training for this event has however not gone according to plan...  I ran my first trail race on 11 March 2012.  I entered the 10km trail race and started off at a great trot.  Soon into the race I realised that this is not the same as road running (you don't say)... it's WAY more difficult.  I was just starting to get the hang of running single trail when I stumbled over something and literally planted myself into the ground.  One moment I was running, then next I was picking myself up off the track - collecting my sunglasses that had gone flying and glancing around to see who had witnessed my fall from grace... I proceeded on down the track - the fall was so quick that I hadn't even had a chance to put out my hands to stop my fall (like that would have helped), and my knee and elbow was bleeding.  Soon after this commotion (about 7km in) I somehow managed to miss the 10km turn off and carried on straight ahead towards the finish line.  By the time I realised that I was heading towards the finishing line, I had my rythm back and was thinking this was really not bad and I'll do this again.  I ran over the finish line and imagine my suprise when the commentator came to me and congratulated me as the first Ladies 10km back... WHAT...NO!! ... not me...really...I thought I had ran 10km which was obviously not the truth!! My first trail race, I'm really not very fit and I came first in the 10km race... HAHAHAHA... So my honesty streak through and I stopped everything there and then (sorry can't take the prize money or the glory, it really isn't true) - and I slinked away sheepishly - not before collecting my medal though...I have however since then learnt that I shouldn't have taken a medal since I didn't finish the track that I had entered for... I'm sorry (don't tell).  It's my first time and I'll know better next time!!

Anyway... it's about a week before Impi challenge and I feel I'm not ready for this race.  I mean, if I could fall over nothing on a normal trail run...what will I do with obstacles in my way?? 

Oh boy.... what have I gotten myself into?

94.7 cycle challenge

What a challenge that was!  The morning was charged with anticipation, we couldn’t wait to get started.  Not knowing what to expect I was slightly anxious – but nevertheless very excited.  I just knew we were going to rock the race.

It was awesome seeing Jo’burg from a different point of view – and the spectators made the race.  They were all over, encouraging us to pull through.

We remained strong throughout the race – but we took a lot longer than anticipated.  At the last water point my partner suddenly remembered that the cut off time for medals is 6 hours – and we had about 30 mins to get there.  I don’t know what came over me, but I knew with absolute clarity that there was no way that I was going to spend 6 hours on a bike and have nothing to show for it.  So I pulled finger and just about sprinted the last few kilometres.  I still don’t know how we did it, but I crossed the line with an official finish of 5hr59m20s…  how is that for a close shave?

We did it!! 

Moutain Biking escapades and the Cycle Challenge!

My partner and I, in our quest to find an awesome, fun, healthy hobby, have taken up mountain biking.  What an awesome sport.  We loving it so far.  With our brand spanking new, shiny, twin bikes (yeah a bit embarrasing but that's ok) we have joined the ranks of the mountain bikers.

I, however, am proving to be a bit spastic when it comes to riding (or rather stopping) with the cleats.  I just can't get my foot out of the frikken pedal at various strategic moments.  I have skinned my knees three times and my legs have more bruises than not.  On one particularly gruelling uphill, single track on rocks climb, I lost my nerve and wanted to stop and walk the rest of the way. I unclipped my left foot (yay me), proceeded to unclip my right foot and unbeknown to me clipped my left foot in again...  Needless to say by the time I noticed this I was already on the ground with the bike ontop of me.  That was sore.

Luckily perseverance is one of my strong points (either that or stupidity) - but I will get this right and will be conquering those uphill climbs with ease and grace (or something like that).

Call us suckers but we have entered the 94.7 Cycle challenge.  It's a 97.4 km road race through the streets of Jo'burg on 20 November 2011.  It's great since the roads are closed and we'll get to see Jo'burg from a totally different view.  I've always said I wanted to do this - and this year I will - provided I go the distance of course...

ABC of fitness

Last year I finally accepted that I’m not a gym bunny.  No more trying, no more pretending.  After more than a decade of gym contracts and contributions (donations), I decided to here and no further.  I’m not one of those people that can go to gym and then have to stand waiting for equipment, bunched like sheep into full to the brim classes, more impersonal you cannot get. Phew…what a relief not feeling guilty about not getting up to go to gym or stopping by on the way home. 

But I knew I had to do something…

I had to find an exercise routine that suited me and my lifestyle (and hanging around at the gym is not part of that).  I bought a pair of running shoes and took to the streets. (What could be easier?  Well well well.) I was so unfit I could hardly run for 1 full minute! 

After a few months I realised that I needed to supplement the running since I wasn’t running as often as I should.  Then I stumbled upon Adventure Bootcamp for Women and how glad I am for that!  It’s an outdoor training programme for women, run over 4 weeks at a time – with each week getting progressively harder.  We have to measure and weigh ourselves, have timed runs, push-ups and sit-ups to track our improvement over the weeks and months.  I love the time spent outdoors, working hard, laughing hard, encouraging each other. Yes, there are the days I’d rather count teeth than run around a football field, but luckily those don’t come too often. I’ve never been more fit and toned in my life! 

But more than the physical aspect I have met some of the greatest women I would otherwise never have met!  I love the bootcamp girl’s dinners, breakfasts, high teas, hikes, walks and runs!  You girls ROCK and my world is the better for it!

Oh, and I love that if I happen to skip a class I get a message demanding to know where I was!