Grateful Friday

I ditched work early today. "Early" means 5.15pm, when most other people are already getting off work anyway. I'd been churning out numbers like there's no tomorrow, into the wee hours... quoting the same shoot to be shot in either London, Prague, Budapest, Barcelona or Madrid. All in the space of 3 days. Or something crazy like that, I can't even remember now. I figured I deserved a break.

I just had to GET OUTTA THERE, and decided I had to get my butt to a 6pm Ashtanga class. I rocked up there thinking it would be a led Primary class (and had a truckload of mental resistance to even showing up for the class), but was pleasantly surprised to find out it was a Mysore-style class instead.

YAYYYYYY!

It was my first evening class in... something like 1.5 years, I think (not counting the Bikram class I took earlier this week. Hehe.)

Wow, the body sure feels different at the end of the day. Loads more open and rubbery. I mean, of course this wasn't news to me (that your body's not as open early in the morning. DUH.), but actually FEELING the difference in the body, made me appreciate the evening practice (for once! I stopped bitching about not having a morning practice!)

It was in the all-white studio I'd written about before. It was just one guy and me in class. He had never done a Mysore class before and was expecting it to be led. So good thing for me the very lovely Portugese teacher was spending more time focused on him and showing him the sequence. PHEW!! Hehe. I just practiced full Primary since it was Friday, and also coz my practices have been either short forms or just plain and simply - sporadic. (I'm also beginning to suspect I have a very unexplained and irrational fear of the Intermediate series. Or at least, a fear of practicing it without the guidance of my teacher in Sydney. Coz I seem to be finding all kinds of excuses not to practice it. I'm not sure why, I'm just wondering if I've got a mental block to practicing it. Let's give it another couple of weeks and see how I feel then.) (Hmm... maybe I'm just dreading getting to Laghuvajrasana? Hahaha.)

The class was actually quite nice - like we had our own private session. :) She would come over and adjust me in between assisting him, so would sometimes only adjust me on one side and forget about the other. At one point, I caught myself thinking she was adjusting me too often coz I was getting distracted... and then I said to myself: HELLO, MISS UNGRATEFUL?!? SOAK IT UP! HOW OFTEN ARE YOU GONNA HAVE A TEACHER AROUND?!

Bad yogi. People are just impossible, aren't they? (by "they" I'm actually referring to myself).

Oh, also... I'm beginning to feel a little extra belly roll when I got to those twists and Supta Kurmasana. URGHHHHHHH! All binds are still there but I think those stroopwafels before bedtime are probably a very bad idea. (Stroopwafels are a Dutch thing. I found vegan versions in the health store. Just coz it's sold in a health store doesn't mean all that sugar is healthy!!)

After class, I took a short stroll home and felt incredibly grateful for everything I have in my life. And then it struck me as I walked past the canals and the houses with curtains drawn so you could see into every single living room, and the people on their bicycles on their way to Friday drinks: I'M LIVING IN AMSTERDAM!!! I'm actually living HERE!!!

And I felt incredibly blessed and content.

(Photo credit here)