Week 2 - yoga failure

Music: Some crappy skipping New Age shit.
Workout: Gym, yoga


After avoiding the classes at my gym for....ohhhhh, about a year I decided to harden the fuck up and go to a yoga class. After my first lesson leaned (read: always wear fresh socks...NO ONE wanted to sit near me. Haha.), I sat down on my mat sort of near the back and waited while the other people filed in. It seemed a little dark in there, but I figured that was just to let people relax. The instructor was talking to a few of the ladies while she fiddled with the music.

Oddly enough she turns the lights down MORE until it's damn near completely dark in there. There was light coming in from the glass doors going to the rest of the gym and thank god, other wise we would have been accidentally kicking and punching each other the whole time. Then the yoga began. It wasn't a bad routine, but it was so hard to see her AND she was super vague about the movements. "Bend your right leg." "Forwards? Back? How much??". "Move your arm over." "Which arm???" "Over effing where?????""Blahblah-blahblahblah..." "What the hell is that? I don't know what the hell that means!"

PLUS she had no rhythm. Pace and rhythm are so important with having your movements sync up with your breathing. She would get distracted while giving bad instructions so people would start to fall over while waiting for the next movement or not have enough time to finish the pose.

Eventually most of the back of the class, tired of straining to see the instructor, or the other front-seated class-mates OR asking the rest of the confused....kind of gave up and just giggled a lot. The instructor finally started wandering through the class and we told her what was going on, so she KIND of helped a bit then, but not much. The class was almost over then anyways....

As a side point, I know I'm just too heavy to do yoga right now. I have very weak wrists and jacked up knees and the pressure makes them hurt like hell.

I still think I'd like to try other classes, now that I'm not so nervous, but I think yoga is out...

Pilates is hard.

Lesson learned tonight. Pilates is HARD. The instructors (at least on the DVDs) are really annoying too.

I am SORE. Mostly not in a good "I got a good workout" kind of way either. My knees, wrists and the palms of my hands hurt. At the same time, the leg workouts were pretty good. Anything standing up or flailing your arms around sucked though. Granted, that could have had something to do with the fact that I was in my basement and the ceiling is only about 5'9" tall, but still.

At the same time I can feel leg, stomach and butt muscles that definitely got worked on. I think this may me something I work up to, instead of trying to do 1.5 hours of it on my first go. I do have a tendency to either push too hard or give up to easily when I do....well anything. I'm currently aiming for "too hard", but within reason. Hey....that makes sense to me...