Five, We're Alive! The 30-Day Yoga Challenge

Your City Promdi has embarked on a new adventure: The 30-Day Yoga Challenge with Adriene.

Let's see if I can become less tense and more toned over the next month.

Day 5: Liked the Day 4 session so much I decided to use that as my warm-up for whatever Adriene has in store for Day 5. Turned out that was a good decision because there's quite a bit of muscle work that has to be done for this session, with some stretches coupled with a little bit of balancing and core conditioning. It was a bit tiring, and I might have strained and wobbled some (i.e., a lot) but it was good to know that some unused muscles somewhere in my body were re-energized by the routines here. Also, it's always nice to listen to Adriene during yoga--she's so encouraging and light, so I can relax about doing the whole thing.

Day 4... is really really really a long time coming. I've been out doing stuff with friends, taking trips to places and I've been too pooped to do yoga. But, anyway, today, I've finally gotten down on all fours for Day of this challenge. This was a fairly easy session spent mostly on all fours and in child's pose. I love the stretches here. I'm thinking of doing this again tomorrow before doing the Day 5 challenge.

Day 3: I'd like to call this the Crotch Stretch yoga session. We gave a lot of attention to just stretching out the kinks and tense muscles of the legs and the inner thighs all the way to the junction between the groin and the thigh. I was so thankful I was alone in my room doing yoga because some of the poses are downright awkward, with your legs all splayed out or sometimes trussed like a chicken ready for roasting. But boy, those poses felt good--like airing out a room which haven't been opened in a century. And I guess in some sense--that's exactly how this session's movements are designed, to use up muscles which we rarely use in everyday life.

Quick note on how I'm feeling after three days of doing the challenge--a lot of the neck tension and muscle aches that I usually feel from my office work are noticeably lessened. They're still there, but they're not as pronounced. It seems to my (very optimistic eyes) like I'm getting a little definition back into my biceps. I'm also feeling a lot energetic--maybe from the endorphins released by the three days of exercise. Let's see if anything else improves in the next 27 days.

Day 2: Back massage is all that sticks to me of this session. A lot of downward facing dogs and planks, and all of them just sort of realigned my spine. I felt a lot of twinges along the sides of my body and all along my back when I was trying out some of the new positions that Adriene introduced. After a few repetitions, though... wow! The muscles sort of just eases and relaxes. Great work-out session! Looking forward to tomorrow's session.

Day 1: The name says it all--"Ease Into It." The session is easy and almost playful. Adriene coaxed me to just relax and be aware of my whole body and how it is moving. This first session helped loosen my tight shoulder muscles and aching back muscles along the spine.

Check back here for Day 5!

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