Big Life Change

I've posted before about my life changes, from what I ate to who I spent my time with, where I lived, and what I did with my time. But now I'm at the beginning of the biggest life change of my life ever.

Marriage was a big deal, but it wasn't a sudden change. The wedding was formalizing a relationship that grew over a few years. No one was shocked. No one said, "Wow, I didn't think you would get married."

It really surprises me that people have reacted to the news that I'm pregnant with "I thought you were going to be childless!" Thanks, Dad. All you had to do was ask. It seemed obvious to me that it was the next step for me and Brad.

I'm in the middle of the first trimester which seems to take forever... in terms of morning sickness and everyone saying, "Don't worry that's only in the first trimester, it will pass soon." 7 more weeks seems like a long time to feel nauseous, but I guess it should be a comfort that it will go away at a predictable time. 

My biggest problem with the first trimester is the idea that it's supposed to be hush hush secret that I'm pregnant. This is something I've been working towards for years: getting my body in shape, getting our house, having 4-door reliable cars paid off, no debt, etc. And it's supposed to be a big secret! Why? Oh because I could have a miscarriage and it would be awkward. Seriously? That's a good enough reason to keep really exciting news to myself?! Seriously?

I went ahead and told my friends I see everyday, and my supervisor/team at work, because if I didn't, they'd worry about what's wrong with me. Why would I hold super exciting news in and worry people who care about me?

But, still I've kept the news off of Facebook and haven't told a lot of people yet, not because of fear of miscarriage, but because of fear of people thinking it's wrong for me to tell this early. I do recognize the possibility of miscarriage, but I try not to worry about it, and I'm just going on like everything is perfect until proven otherwise.

Now that the exciting news that I'm going to be a mother is out. OMG seriously? I'm going to be a mom? Oh crap, how do you keep an infant alive without breaking the law? I've always been the baby. I don't have much experience with babies. For now I'm just going to focus on keeping myself and my sweet pea sized child healthy.

A lot of people keep telling Brad and me that our lives are going to change a lot. First of all: NO DUH? SERIOUSLY? Yeah, we thought of that long before we started calculating ovulation days with charts.
Second, that implies that nothing changes until the baby is born. EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT RIGHT NOW! Obviously my body is changing and I have to be careful what I do and eat. I need more sleep, sometimes I feel like crap for a really good reason, so obviously my life is different, and of course that affects Brad too, since he lives with me.

Of all of the changes in my life now and when the child is born, the hardest one for me to handle emotionally is my yoga practice. My practice is very important to me and I give it 100% credit to my body and emotional state being ready for this. Of course I can still do yoga and I still should, but it's very different now. I'm not just thinking about me when I practice. I'm thinking about that little tiny heartbeat inside.

I've been attending Beryl Bender Birch's workshop this weekend. I signed up for it knowing we were trying to conceive, but not expecting to actually get pregnant this early. I've talked to my doctor, Nydia, and Sreedhara, and read the pregnancy section of every yoga book I have (that's a lot). Every book says something different, but it seems to be the consensus that I can do anything in the first trimester as long as I feel ok. Even my family doctor told me to listen to my body and that it will tell me if something isn't right for me.

The workshop is wonderful and I love it, but it is a new experience for me. I've been to a workshop with her before, that part is essentially this same, but I am different. I'm no longer pushing myself as far as I can. I'm doing child's pose instead of downward facing dog in sun salutations, skipping vinyasas between seated poses, not doing navasana or any tough ab work (because the books say not to and because it feels terrible), and not pushing very far into twists. Next weekend I'm going to David Swenson's workshop in Austin, and knowing what I know about him, I'll have no problem modifying my practice as I have been. You learn more from listening at workshops than from doing asana anyway.

I plan to continue to teach yoga as there's no reason for me practice every pose I teach. A good teacher isn't practicing while teaching anyway.

Yoga is Non-Competitive

There's a Bikram Yoga Competition in San Antonio this month. I see a lot of San Antonio yogis getting excited, and while I'm not one to tell them what to get excited about, I don't share their enthusiasm.

When I first discovered yoga, one reason I fell in love with it (as a former competitive springboard diver) was that it is non-competitive and non-judgmental. That's just beautiful. Yoga is for the sake of the practitioner, because it's good for the body, mind, and spirit, also it's fun. It doesn't get any better than that. Shiny gold medals and trophies distract us from what really matters and the competition required to win alienates people from each other.

I was only a diver for a year and wasn't ever good enough to actually win, partly because of the lack of flexibility and strength at the time and partly because I only did it for a year, but I saw what the competitive spirit does. It takes all the fun out of it and makes it hard work with more risks of injuries. What could have been a great friend with a shared interest became a rival to defeat. What if I just like flipping around in the air and landing in a giant pool of water? Good luck finding a coach who cares about anything other than winning.

I saw the same thing when I did debate competitions a few years later. I'd try to be friendly, "Hi, I'm Becky. You like debate, I like debate. That's pretty cool." No way, they weren't having any of that. It's harder to treat me like an idiot if you see me as another human being who's a lot like you.

Yoga is still going well :)

I subbed last night at the Bandera Spectrum and people asked when I normally teach so they can come to my class. Too bad I don't normally teach outside of work yet. I just sub as much as I'm able to, but AWESOME compliment!

Then today there was a great conversation today at my office class as I turned off the lights for Savasana.

Pete: Becky, you kicked my butt!
me: Yoga is supposed to kick your butt and make you like it.
Pete: I liked it!

Then he emailed me to tell me how much he liked the class.

"Becky,
I really enjoyed your yoga class. It's something I've wanted to do for many years that I never got around to, until today.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Pete"

This is why I teach yoga. :-D

I give credit to the poses and the Ashtanga Primary Series. Most of my classes are based on the series in one way or another. I'm glad I was able to learn about it so I can share the benefits with others!

Another thing about teaching. I've really gotten into having people swivel around to the other side in standing poses where I'm standing on the back of the room, so the people in the back of the room get some time in the front of the room.

Then for Presarita Padottanasana the side of the room becomes the front. Also, you haven't lived until you've told 20 people what do while your head is upside down looking at them between your legs. :-D That's fun every time.

I Love My Yoga at Work Class

Today was my usual yoga at work class, but instead of my 3 or 4 regulars, 13 people were there because I had an all-staff email sent out last week letting people know about the class. (The last all-staff email was sent back in November.)

It was fantastic. I had to tone down the difficulty a bit for the beginners, I only had them do 2 Surya Namaskara As and that seemed like enough for some of them. I figured Surya Namaskara B is for another day. One man in particular was really struggling, but had a good attitude about it. I reminded them to focus on breathing and that it doesn't matter how far it goes, not to push too hard, etc.

At then end of class he said that this is why he really needs to do this. YES! He gets it! Yay for taking care of himself. It's so rewarded to bring yoga to people who wouldn't do yoga if I didn't make it convenient and free. :)

On Slippery Yoga Mats

Slipping during yoga was a problem for me for a long time and I threw a lot of money around trying to solve this. Now a lot of my students are having the same problem. I just wrote this out as an email to a student, but I decided to put it here to share it with both my readers. ;)

Jade Yoga mats are the best I've found. They come in 2 different thicknesses (the standard mat is 1/4 inch, so even their thin one is thicker than regular mats)

3/16 inch and 5/16 inch

I have the 3/16 inch one (2 actually) and I love it, but I wish I had the 5/16 inch one. In Ashtanga 3/16 is fine, but in Anusara, you do a lot of weird stuff with your knee digging into the floor and more padding would be nice.

(You're never supposed to put your weight on your knee cap, always in front of your knee, it hurts like hell right on your knee cap. DON'T DO THAT! I think I'm going to rebel every time I'm asked to dig my knee into the mat, there has to be a better way to stretch my quads.)

There's also yoga towels that you can put over your mat. I've tried those and they're not bad.

Yogitoes is good.

OMG they have a Groovy Yogitoes towel! I don't need it. I won't buy it. I don't need it. I won't buy it. I don't need it. I won't buy it. I don't need it. I won't buy it.

The Manduka towel is also alright.

Don't buy the Manduka black mat! It's supposedly top of the line awesome. I have one, and it's like a freaking slip 'n' slide. I can barely even attempt yoga on it without a towel. Biggest waste of money ever.

backbend to handstand

First Class at Spectrum

I subbed an Ashtanga-lite class at Spectrum today. The room was full and people kept trickling in, eventually 20 people were there. I'd never taught an entire class this full before. I taught some Sun Salutations at my big graduation class, but never the whole hour and fifteen with more than 6 or so people. One of my students from my work class came. It was nice to have a smiling face of someone I know.

I was nervous, hoping I'd talk loud enough to be audible and they'd enjoy the class. It always looks so easy when someone else is doing it. I hope this gets easier with practice. I feel like I'm full of book knowledge and I need the confidence to pass it on and share it with others. It went well and I enjoyed it, I hope the students did too. Now I need to bug people about getting me my own regular class.

At the end, one of the students told me that I have a good yoga personality and that she thought I did really well. Yay! :) I'm pretty laid back and easy going. I don't really care what my students are doing unless they're going to hurt themselves.

I'm very grateful to everyone who has helped me get to this point.