Week 1 Done + a Side of Wheel Pose :)

After a long day at work + a work meeting + going out to eat to celebrate someone's Birthday =  I was ready to come home and skip my workout. Legs are of course still a little sore but I couldn't pass up a yoga workout. I was a bit worried since it was called Yoga Extreme so I did a quick look over some reviews and watched a decent youtube review that helped to confirm it would be a nice stretchy yoga not some EXTREME squat lunge thing.

MY LEGS ARE SO HAPPY WITH ME!!!!! They needed this stretch and the flowing motions, my back need it, and my arms enjoyed it. I all around LOVED this yoga workout! It flowed non stop, I didn't feel like I was holding poses for to long, and the tougher poses  had different versions of it showing you the basic to the advanced way to hold them. If you are new to yoga and doing this workout, don't get flustered! Once you learn the flows and names it will get easier to do!

Not only did I really enjoy this workout, I even learned a couple new moves. One move I thought I was already doing a pretty advanced version of it....but guess again!! I did find crow pose to be an odd one to put in there since modifying it doesn't seem to easy to do. Crow pose is defiantly one I want to be working on though. I enjoyed the challenge this video allowed IF you wanted to challenge yourself. Speaking of challenges, this is the first yoga video I've done that had me do the wheel pose and I'm SO SO SO SO SO happy to say that I was able to get myself into the pose AND hold it!!!!! I wasn't able to hold it for the whole time but I did it for a good chunk of it!

One of my fav things about yoga is the challenge of learning and being able to do new poses. Some poses you can see it and be like "ta-da, I can do this one! It's so easy!" and other ones you can try to do it, not quite get it, then practice and practice and work on other things to help you be able to do it. Wheel pose has been that pose for me! Let me share my wheel pose story with you.

A few months ago I was super getting into yoga. Like all my other workouts, I do it at home. I had to learn how to do the poses on my own and always have a fear that I'm learning something wrong. So I posted on Facebook asking if anyone would like to go to a yoga class with me. Katie if you are reading this, THANK YOU for being the person to step up and go with me! I throughly enjoyed the class! It was neat to do it in person with other people and having an instructor to help you. I enjoyed being told I was doing something correctly and ways I could challenge myself when a pose was to easy for me. That is where the wheel pose came in. We were doing a bridge pose when the instructor walked up and asked if I could do a wheel pose. I said "i don't know" when in my head I was screaming "HELL NO!". I have little to no arm strength! It's something I keep trying to work on but see little improvement. I was fine with doing bridge pose but allowed him to help me pop up into wheel pose. I would of fallen on my face and butt at the same time if he hadn't held me in position. I made it my mission to learn wheel pose after that class.

What better way to track your progress then taking pictures! I set my camera up and snapped a pic. The first pic, the orange shirt on the top, is from 11/7. The pink top shirt photo is from 11/27. Sometime passed and on 12/19 I set my camera up and attempted a wheel pose and the words "HOLY FUCK!" popped out of my mouth as I, with less effort then I had ever impagned, popped up into the pose way further then I had excited and held it for a tiny tiny bit.....that is the bottom pink shirt picture. My husband had a good laugh at my excitement. I hadn't really tried wheel pose since then and the few times I have I REALLY struggled lifting myself with my arms. So when Yoga Extreme was putting me into bridge pose I had a feel deep down I knew what was coming next. So she Autumn said "wheel pose" and I got in position and BAM! Up I went and I was so excited that I was HOLDING the position!!!!! Its an odd position to be in if your not use to it and my back is still gaining flexibility so I didn't push it and hold it to long. That and last time I was in it I struggled getting out so I didn't wait for my arms to give out or lock up lol. So OF COURSE after the workout was done I grabbed my camera and snapped a pic! Little bits of improvement but defiantly improvement there! My back is more flexible, my arms are stronger, and the fact that I can hold it for a handful of seconds without dying is amazing to me!

I guess we can call the Wheel Pose my NSV for the Day....heck even the week and maybe the month lol.