San Fran

I had a fantastic trip to San Fran!  My husband & I flew down Wednesday night and came home Sunday morning.  The UW men's b-ball team was playing in the NCAA tournament in San Jose.  We're big Husky fans...we have season tickets to the games, so we couldn't pass up the chance to take a little mini vacation!

We stayed with a friend in San Francisco and then took the train to San Jose for the games (it's about an hour away). Before we went, I looked online and found a yoga studio right by where we were staying and they had a special offer - your first class for $5, perfect!  The studio was called Yoga Garden and they have a few different types of classes.  I decided to take the Iyengar class because I had never done it before...actually I didn't even know what it was. 

Luckily it was a small class (only three students) so we got a lot of personal attention.  The main difference between Iyengar and what I am used to is that we used lots of props during class.  There were blocks, straps, bolsters (kind of like wedge pillows), blankets, ropes hanging off the walls, chairs, a bar, etc.  It was intense!  In each pose, we used a prop to help get into proper allignment and go deeper into the poses.  I had to check my ego at the door because I had always had a little bit of a negative mentality towards props...like you use them if you're not good enough/strong enough/flexible enough to do it on your own.  Boy was I wrong!  It was just as much work, if not more work, to use them.  The next day I was sore in places I didn't know existed!

Friday I went to an Ashtanga class which basically seemed the same to me as Vinyasa - I'm not sure what the difference is.  Again it was a small class, only two of us this time...so apparently people in San Fran like to sleep in.  The room was not heated so that was interesting to see how much heat I generated on my own.  During the first part of class my hands kept slipping on my mat (which I had borrowed from the studio).  I was having a really difficult time staying in Downward Dog.  Normally I have a Yogi Toes towel on top of my mat, so I figured that's why I was slipping.  I struggled for the first 15 minutes of class and then finally said something to the teacher.  She gave me a different mat which had a little more grip to it and that instantly fixed the problem.  I wish I had just said something from the beginning rather than getting frustrated with myself.  I just assumed the problem was me and I didn't want to admit that I was having trouble.  Another lesson in checking my ego.

Saturday I was not able to attend a class at the studio because the classes start later on the weekends.  I didn't have time to take a class before we needed to catch the train to San Jose, so I practiced on my own where we were staying.  That was actually nice because I was able to do a lot of stretching.  After two weeks of consecutive yoga, and two nights of sleeping on couches, I needed a good stretch.

Overall it was a wonderful trip - we got to see a bunch of friends, I tried two new kinds of yoga, and the Huskies won both their games and are headed to the Sweet Sixteen!