No Pain, No Gain...and a New Year Ahead

Okay, here's how it's got to go or I won't make it to the New Year. I will spend one day doing Pilates, the next day doing yoga, and the third day crawling on my hands and knees, whimpering and pitiful, too stiff and sore to do anything except take shallow breaths. Until I get a handle (or die) on this exercise crap, I've got to take a day off after every two. In the unlikely event that I don't croak, I will hopefully be able to adjust this wienie stance in the future.

Also, if anyone ever doubts that yoga is hard work, sweat-inducing, and painfully difficult...well, you just come on over here and let me clue you in. I thought I was sore yesterday with the Pilates session. It's a workout, don't get me wrong, and I felt the muscles stretching as I did my hour, but compared to the Eagle asana??

This doesn't look very difficult does it? Ha! You don't have the slightest idea what muscle stretching really means until you've done this pose.

At one point I thought I heard the instructor say that if this pose was too hard to maintain, just ease into the chair. I nearly passed out with relief. Then I realized he meant the Chair pose. Buggers.  That's only marginally easier than the Eagle. 

I finished the whole hour, but I lost the plot around the 45-minute mark and don't know how I got through that last 15. I came back to myself laying on the mat, sweat rolling, trying to take calm, relaxing breaths while all my muscles began packing their bags in disgust to move to Bali. (And interesting that this particular cool down pose is called the Corpse. I was so there.)

I suffer. I am beyond sore. So I figure the only way this will work is if I take every third day off to recover, and to avoid doing irreparable damage--though it might already be too late for that. But hey. It can only get better from here...right? When I start to falter, I'll just bring back that vision of myself in the bathroom mirrors. That should keep me motivated like nothing else.

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I'm also bailing on the blog for the weekend. And not because I'm going to sit around being a crybaby--though no guarantees I won't snivel a time or two. I'm going to finish my movie marathon of the Thin Man series, do a bit of work on my neglected book, make red beans and rice for good luck on New Year's Day, and ease my way into the New Year with a laid-back couple of days--minus the aggro of Pilates and yoga on Sat and Sun. (Mirror, Mirror on the wall...)

So, to all of you who read my stuff, and all my friends and family in Scotland and elsewhere, here's wishing everyone...

(NB:  I changed the yoga photo.  The other picture didn't show the depth and misery of this asana.)