The Mane event

I can now touch my toes without bending my knees 🙂 I still can’t comfortably sit cross-legged though 😦

This week I was invited to an intermediate/advanced workshop with a teacher who is apparently a famous big-shot in the acroyoga world. Bear in mind that I’ve only been doing this a couple of months, with no prior yoga experience, so I wasn’t sure I was anywhere near being good enough. My teacher persuaded me to go though and, although I felt way out of my depth for the most part, I loved it and learned a lot. It was great to be able to work with an experienced flyer so that I could concentrate on getting it wrong instead of worrying about the flyer making mistakes.

This week I also took part in an acroyoga photoshoot and have some pictures of me looking awesome as if I know what I’m doing. My friends are all really impressed so that made me feel good 🙂 Less positive is the fact that one of the poses aggravated an old shoulder injury 😦 I guess this week would be a good one to have a short break from acroyoga and get some new tattoos…

 

In the park like Bob Marley’s donuts

This week has been a pretty big one…

On Sunday I went to my first acrojam in one of the local parks (an acrojam is where a group of people gather together to practice acroyoga). This was my first time practicing outside of a class and I really enjoyed it. I got to try more advanced things and work with people that I would not usually have the chance to because of the way classes are structured. Usually I work with people that have a similar height and build as I do, as this makes it easier to align yourself when learning and refining new positions/poses; this usually means I’m working with fairly big guys. It was great, however, to work with some girls who are much smaller and lighter as this made it much easier for me as a base (in acroyoga the person doing the ‘lifting’ is called a base and the person in the air is called a flyer) to try some of the more challenging transitions and poses. The downside was that I didn’t get to be a flyer, but I much prefer to base anyway. I feel that watching and receiving pointers from more experienced bases allowed me to progress at certain things much quicker than I can do in class due to time constraints and the need for the instructor to keep things at a level that everyone will be fairly comfortable with. I am really grateful for the warm and welcoming reception I and a few other newbies received from the more experienced people, the time they took to help us progress really is appreciated. That leads me on to my favorite thing about acroyoga; the community spirit. After the acrojam most of us headed off to a local restaurant to eat together. I really do feel that the people I have been lucky enough to meet in the few months that I have been practicing acroyoga are some of the most friendly and positive people that I have ever met and I feel that I am a more positive person through knowing them.

In class this week there was an acroyoga practitioner from out-of-town who was around for a week visiting family. I was working with him in class and we got on really well so we decided to try and meet up later in the week to play together (playing in acroyoga just means to practice together). I invited a few other people and we met up a few days later and it was like we were all great friends even though we’d only really spoken for a couple of hours previously, another excellent example of the community spirit that surrounds acroyoga. Again,a few of us went out for a drink and some food afterwards.

The day after my wife mentioned that she was upset/angry with me because she felt I was getting too close to some of the girls that I have been practicing acroyoga with. I’m not sure if it was brought on by the fact that I stayed out late (probably too late) the night before, but it really caught me off guard because I honestly hadn’t thought of anyone I have worked with in that way. My preference in acroyoga partner (on the few occasions I’ve actually been able to choose rather than them being allocated by height/build) has been entirely down to who I think I’d be able to learn and progress with the most. In reality the two people I’ve enjoyed working with the most have both been guys because they’ve been the ones I’ve learnt the most from. I must admit though that I do enjoy working with girls as they are generally much lighter and can make (in my opinion) nicer shapes with their bodies, which makes my acro ‘better’.

But maybe deep down I am ‘just a man’ and shouldn’t be trusted to regularly practice something which can get quite intimate (due to the need to trust and the constant physical contact) with girls. I have spent a number of years trying to avoid getting into compromising situations and maybe I can’t keep hiding my true self away anymore. Should I have to?

Allow myself to introduce… myself

I guess my first post should be a little introduction to who I am and why I’m writing this blog. So, here goes…

A little about me

I am a man who is soon to turn 30 years old. I have tattoos and (lately) a beard and I love metal music. At the start of this year I was the most inflexible person I know and thought that the Om symbol was simply a stylized number 3 that the band Soulfly created for the cover of their third album. If you mentioned yogi to me I would (and still do) think of a cartoon bear who likes to steal pic-a-nic baskets.

Why I started practicing yoga

There are actually a couple of reasons, but my main motivation was to reconnect with my wife by finding something we could do together. We were not having any kind of marital issues but due to our work schedules we were not seeing much of each other. She had asked me to go to yoga with her a few times previously and when she showed me a partner yoga class scheduled for Valentine’s Day I agreed to go.

Another reason I started yoga is to surround myself with positive people. I used to be a very negative and judgmental person and once I accepted this fact I decided to change. Since I made that change a couple of years ago I am much happier with who I am, and hopefully the people around me are happier too (even if they didn’t necessarily notice what had changed).

Why I started writing this blog

In all honesty, I started this blog so I could read it again in the future and track my progress. I won’t be telling my friends, yoga teachers, or even my wife that I’m writing it because I want to be honest which I may find hard to do if I know the people I am talking about will read it.

I am, however, not hiding the blog and if you stumble upon it and think you know me I would be happy for you to let me know what you think. If you don’t know me I hope you enjoy reading it and maybe it will amuse or even motivate you.