Well, right when I was first starting yoga, I wrote about “Yoga Pains” and now it’s all about my yoga gains.  While I still suck at a lot of moves and struggle to figure out how exactly each pose should feel, I’ve definitely gotten better.  From the first downward facing dog of the night, I can already bring my heels to the floor.  I was nowhere near that three months ago.  I finally started to understand this concept of pushing the floor away – no matter what I did when I first started, my palms just wouldn’t stay glued to the floor and I pretty much was only using the heels of my palms to keep myself up in downward facing dog and plank pose.  This created a strain in my wrists that was painful.

I’ve gotten better at regulating my breathing, but still feel like I fill up too fast and those deep gulps of air just don’t last very long for me.  I guess I’m still breathing in too much air right away.  My shoulders stay away from my ears and I’ve been pretty good at remembering to lengthen through everything.  However, a lot of this lengthening strains my right shoulder because I have to raise my arm above my head and the constriction there doesn’t help the looseness I have in the socket.  I have to try a lot harder to keep my shoulder in the socket, properly stored away.

I’m still working on keeping my legs engaged during poses and not getting shaky so quickly.  And while it’s getting much easier to maintain a handstand (with some help keeping my legs straight up), I’m still weak in a lot of areas.  I’ve noticed that I’m improving in all areas, but gradually.  My upper body strength has been pretty pathetic since sometime in high school, so it’s nice that I can work on that.  My low back has been troubling me for over three years and it’s feeling a little less strained when I stand.  Most of all I think it’s nice to take out an hour of my time twice a week to focus on my body.  I don’t find my thoughts wandering when I’m in class.  I just concentrate on what is before me and the moves that we are working on.  Then at the end, I completely let go for the resting part and sometimes even fall asleep from being so relaxed.

I still find yoga to be too challenging to be enjoyable (for the most part), but then again, I get bored when it’s not hard enough.  We’ll see if I continue on when I’m no longer living at this apartment complex.