Nature is so colorful lately, rainbow colors everywhere. It rained this morning as I was going to the gym for yoga class and I barely made it but managed to fight the traffic somehow. Once there, the yoga teacher started his difficult class, telling me at the end, "with you, Dorothy, I think you don't push enough...etc.," and he says I could do so much better. If I can do it, anyone can do it, he said in class, as he did handstands with piked legs. I did the wheel pose over a Swiss ball when he was walking in the room, and then he said in class, for you backbenders, you need to focus on bending the back in each pose and then it won't feel so difficult. He remarked I was getting ripped biceps from using my arms in yoga class.
In his class, I feel going into the poses deeper and deeper; toward the end of class, he twisted me on my tight left side so that I could feel what the binding position with hands clasped together behind my back with my knee pulled into my chest would feel like and I felt the muscles of my back getting some needed relief. Believe in yourself, I thought, as I left class and swam for a while.
Then I took Yasir to the park to play with his friends. He had a great time wrestling with a boxer puppy, running with a Jack Russell terrier, and bouncing around with a young Great Dane. I walked home, taking in the colors of the park as the day came to a close.
I got home and realized I had just enough time to go to dance class at the neighborhood school, so I packed my clothes and got there, seeing the teacher taking a break outside the studio. She asked me how I was and I told her about my foot, which I had hurt somehow, and was limping on for a week. I think it was the plastic shoes I had been wearing at work, but I told her I now have some very good shoes and wearing compression socks helped the swelling. I had wanted to go to the podiatrist but now it seems to be getting better. "You need your feet to walk on," my sister said. True, so it's epsom salt soaks for me, prescribed by the pharmacist at the local drug store.
Paradoxically, my feet feel better after ballet class, although I noticed today how flat they were. I always had trouble pointing my feet in ballet class. Some girls have such nice feet, I thought, but yoga classes have helped me tremendously in getting over my feelings of inferiority. Yoga has balanced me to realize that nothing is as important as your inner self and no exterior entrapments should ever get you down. We didn't jump in tonight's adult class, but we did do a full barre and some lovely turns in center. It was nice to pirouette again, and yoga class has taught me also to examine how I am standing and correct my stance, the way my yoga teacher does, so when I noticed how I dumped my back while I was turning, I was able to fix it. "Good, Dorothy," the dance teacher said!
The teacher focused on turnout in class tonight. I had just been thinking about this very subject while in the pool at the gym, feeling how the water helps me rotate my legs and really feel which muscles to use. They are the deep inner muscles and you can feel them working but can't see them, like something coming from the gut. The teacher said to move the hip bones foward and allow the hip crease to happen without tilting the pelvis and looking like a drunk pigeon. I believe the connection is in the inner thigh, which must move forward also, and the teacher also said to rotate the calves forward, so that everything is moving inside out, kind of like yoga, too.
I must work on my feet, I told the teacher after class, and she said, just worry about standing up. Stance is everything. No more slouching, not if you want to dance...then I watched the advanced girls in pointe class, their teaher remarking, if you don't pull up your thighs, I will kill you. I noticed how he corrected a girl who was not turning her head correctly, telling her to see her back before moving her head. It's nice to be able to have a school nearby, I thought, as I walked home in the drizzly night. Dancing always makes me happy.
In his class, I feel going into the poses deeper and deeper; toward the end of class, he twisted me on my tight left side so that I could feel what the binding position with hands clasped together behind my back with my knee pulled into my chest would feel like and I felt the muscles of my back getting some needed relief. Believe in yourself, I thought, as I left class and swam for a while.
Then I took Yasir to the park to play with his friends. He had a great time wrestling with a boxer puppy, running with a Jack Russell terrier, and bouncing around with a young Great Dane. I walked home, taking in the colors of the park as the day came to a close.
I got home and realized I had just enough time to go to dance class at the neighborhood school, so I packed my clothes and got there, seeing the teacher taking a break outside the studio. She asked me how I was and I told her about my foot, which I had hurt somehow, and was limping on for a week. I think it was the plastic shoes I had been wearing at work, but I told her I now have some very good shoes and wearing compression socks helped the swelling. I had wanted to go to the podiatrist but now it seems to be getting better. "You need your feet to walk on," my sister said. True, so it's epsom salt soaks for me, prescribed by the pharmacist at the local drug store.
Paradoxically, my feet feel better after ballet class, although I noticed today how flat they were. I always had trouble pointing my feet in ballet class. Some girls have such nice feet, I thought, but yoga classes have helped me tremendously in getting over my feelings of inferiority. Yoga has balanced me to realize that nothing is as important as your inner self and no exterior entrapments should ever get you down. We didn't jump in tonight's adult class, but we did do a full barre and some lovely turns in center. It was nice to pirouette again, and yoga class has taught me also to examine how I am standing and correct my stance, the way my yoga teacher does, so when I noticed how I dumped my back while I was turning, I was able to fix it. "Good, Dorothy," the dance teacher said!
The teacher focused on turnout in class tonight. I had just been thinking about this very subject while in the pool at the gym, feeling how the water helps me rotate my legs and really feel which muscles to use. They are the deep inner muscles and you can feel them working but can't see them, like something coming from the gut. The teacher said to move the hip bones foward and allow the hip crease to happen without tilting the pelvis and looking like a drunk pigeon. I believe the connection is in the inner thigh, which must move forward also, and the teacher also said to rotate the calves forward, so that everything is moving inside out, kind of like yoga, too.
I must work on my feet, I told the teacher after class, and she said, just worry about standing up. Stance is everything. No more slouching, not if you want to dance...then I watched the advanced girls in pointe class, their teaher remarking, if you don't pull up your thighs, I will kill you. I noticed how he corrected a girl who was not turning her head correctly, telling her to see her back before moving her head. It's nice to be able to have a school nearby, I thought, as I walked home in the drizzly night. Dancing always makes me happy.
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