Downward Dog

So I went to a Level 1 Basics class yesterday. It was only the second yoga class I've been to and my first one to go to alone. It was an interesting experience and aside from the instructor unknowingly taking away my blanket to give someone else as knee support, I enjoyed the class. It was a lot harder than the first class I went to I think because he did poses and flows that I've seen nor heard of before and my body just was not used to it. But what I really enjoyed was the amount of time he spent on proper alignment.

The first pose he explained in depth was Downward Dog (after he corrected me on it). He pointed out that although this pose doesn't get explored quite as frequently it's still extremely important and most people do it wrong (read: injury inducing). He gave us checkpoints so that when we do it alone we won't fall off the bandwagon.

I went to Ethan's house to show him some of the moves we did and tried really hard to do this pose correctly. I did it so much in fact that I was uncharacteristically sore. My neck and back were the worst and since I never experienced soreness in those areas from working out (my arms and legs were also extremely sore but those are feelings I'm used to thanks to tennis) I thought I had some sort of spinal injury or brain damage (we practiced a few inversions).

I came to the conclusion that yes I am naturally flexible which enables me to get into advanced poses, however I do not have the strength to support myself in these poses which led me to hurt myself unnecessarily.

Taking a forced rest day, just when I got back into it.

edit: I want to take the time to also say that today was a fabulous day. I woke up early to go to yoga, met Ethan for lunch and we had these AWESOME burgers, with sweet potato fries and onion rings (I'm so good at being healthy), and then we got Davids Tea before hanging out at his house and playing Sims. So although my body is pretty wrecked I had a really perfect day.