Day 21: Don't Space Out!

First of all, a backpedal. I was too hard on my fellow practitioners in Fremont yesterday. Everyone is different, and what's good for my practice may not be good for theirs. And I hope you don't think I'm saying "if you fidget your yoga sucks," not at all. If you do a rigorous, athletic practice like Bikram or Power Vinyasa or maybe some others I would try keeping the unnecessary movements to a minimum--you may find it helps you. You may not. Of course if you use blocks or straps in your practice, that's probably a whole other story. There's probably a million other things I've never thought of that would make it a whole other story. I don't mean to be a snarky uptight yoga person. It's important not to take oneself too seriously as a yoga practitioner. When I feel my mind getting tight in practice, I like to remind myself "It's no big deal. It's beginning yoga." And it is. I will stick on the fact that the McFidgets distract me, but that's just one more thing for me to practice with.

Had a good practice today. Jury duty was off yesterday, on today, so I was in Capitol Hill once more, at The Sweatbox. My body is getting good at some of the poses and letting my mind wander off. This is really not good. I spaced out one side of first set of Standing Forehead to Knee, and I just blankly savasana'd through the first set of Full Locust, which I really enjoy! I'm taking my space-outs COMPLETELY on me, but I think some contributing causes are the large class (Fremont and Capitol Hill both tend to be larger than my home studio) and in Capitol Hill, the fact they use a headset (they have to to be heard over their giant blower.) It's like it's radio sound or something and it's easier to tune out? We shall see tomorrow when I return to home base yoga studio. Anyway, the instructor was pretty good and I was groovin' with my new Lumi towel: http://www.luminaire-yoga.com/lumi.html which I bought up the street at Samadhi Yoga five minutes before class. It is so swoss. Reasons why:

It covers the whole mat.
It's velvety soft.
Through magical powers, it grips the mat and doesn't slip around.
It doesn't tend to get wrinkled up, whereas with a bath towel you can get big lumpy folds.
It's a relatively grippy surface for my hands and feet.
It magically wicks sweat and makes it evaporate quickly. Or something. Dunno, magical poweres again.
It was ten dollars cheaper than the Yogitoes towel.
It takes up very little space in my bag!

I got the "earth" color. And it's machine washable and according to the practitioner who recommended it to me, it air-dries quickly. I may get another one before I go to training (two classes a day, after all.) If you do hot yoga, I highly recommend them! They may be of limited utility in other practices; not knowing I could not say. But their velvety soft texture is sure to please no matter what you're doing! "But Marmot," you say, "practicing with a bath towel is PART of the PRACTICE, just like the SWEAT!!!" Touche. But I will accept that hypocrisy if you let me keep my Lumi.

Sorry no sophisticated linkage--I am so exhausted. Off to bed.