Steph's New Hobby: Yoga

My first yoga lesson was actually last Wednesday but this week I took the camera with me to see if I could score some pictures of me in some of the poses.
After my first lesson I had some homework to do. If you're thinking I had to practice stretching or breathing you're wrong. I had to learn how to count from 1-10 in Japanese. This was not an actual homework assignment but one that I assigned to myself. See, at the beginning of class the instructor has us do a series of stretches for our legs and feet and they followed a particular rythm as each student counts from 1 to 10. But I had to ask if I could do it in "eigo" (English) because I didn't know how to do it in Japanese. Well, after some practice, this week I was able to do it....yay for me! Some numbers are actually two syllables but the teacher has us break it down into just one syllable so that it flows better for the exercise. This makes it a little easier for me especially because 6,7 and 8 are the 2 syllable ones and those are the ones that I had trouble saying fast. So here is the written version of my accomplishment for this week:
ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, ku, ju!
There it is 1-10 in Japanese, now you can practice saying it fast also.

I was a little scared about going to yoga because I had heard from the other Nova teachers that the yoga teacher did some bizarre things like walking on your back, standing on your ankles and cracking your back or neck. I was told that if I said "itai" (painful) he would not go any further. Last week's lesson I did pretty good and I managed to avoid the need for any chiropractic treatments. This week I wasn't so lucky. I was attempting to touch my knees with my head while sitting flat on the floor with legs stretched out, when the teacher noticed I wasn't going as far as he would have liked. He came over and did some massages on my back. I was scared that he would try to crack my back so I looked over at Heather and asked her if he was about to do it and she said "maybe". Before I could try to figure out how to tell him I didn't want him to do that, he had already placed his knees on my back and had started "adjusting" my back. I can't say that it hurt but it didn't feel good either. I may be a little sore tomorrow. However, as soon as he finished I tried it again and magically I came pretty close to touching my knees with my head.....but couldn't hold it too long.

The next challenge was to make an upside down arch (see below). While laying down on the floor, we had to lift ourselves up until our body made a "perfect" arch. I thought Heather and I were doing ok but then he wrote on the board "65%" and then drew a picture of what we looked like and drew a picture of what we should look like. We were not close at all. After some stretching of the chest muscles to "open up our chest" we tried it again. Heather did it so well that he took out the camera to take a picture of her. Then she managed to get a picture of me while I attempted it. We still have a long way to go with the placement of our arms (arms should be next to the head)but we did improve in the short time we were in class.



After class, they served some tea and snacks for us to enjoy. I again felt the dire need to learn Japanese quickly. Everyone gathered around the small table to make small talk. Although everyone seemed to have questions for Heather and I. Heather did all the talking and translated for me. I can't wait 'til I can speak with them even if it's in the most broken form.

The only man in the picture is our 'Sensei'.