I have said it before. When I am in reading mode, I read exclusively and voraciously. When I knit, I am productive like nobody's busy. And now it seems that when I take up yoga in a serious way, I maybe push my body too far.
I say too far, because I noticed what I think are tiny burst blood vessels on my hands yesterday. And I think it may be due to all of the hand motions - clapping and shaking and raising - that I did in a Friday night, 3 hour long yoga workshop. That's probably not a good thing.
To back up a bit, I have long been interested in Kundalini yoga. At least interested enough to take one class at my local yoga clothing shop (in addition to selling comfy clothing they also offer occasional, inexpensive classes). I also briefly fantasized about doing a Kundalini weekend at Kripalu and checked in several times with the class schedule at Golden Bridge. (But never actually made it there.) So when a friend told me she was doing a weekend workshop with Gurmukh and asked if I wanted to join, I said why not. On Friday we found ourselves in a packed room, waiting for the workshop to begin. Then it did begin, and went on and on and on. Now, I knew that one repeats actions for an extended amount of time in this type of yoga. You just don't get into a pose and hold it, deepening into yourself. Nor do you flow into another pose, as in vinyasa yoga. To provide a better picture: Let's say you raise your arms, shoulder height straight out. Now bring them into a goalpost shape, hands raised, palms flat to the outer walls of the room. Now repeat this action at a pretty rapid pace for at least 4 minutes. You are probably chanting or singing at the same time too - which is somewhat of a welcome and trance inducing distraction, but then what happens to the breath?
And that is what I found myself worrying about often. I am most familiar with yoga that emphasizes the breath as life force. And maybe it was because I am a novice to this practice, but I often found myself not breathing or out of breath or trying to imagine how I could fit my breath into the practice in a comfortable manner. That said, there was a lot of collective energy to experience, which is something I normally don't feel in other practices. So there were things that I observed/experienced that I would want to find again, and other things that nagged away at me, and made me wonder if I was really getting the benefits I should from this practice.
Suffice to say, I am still mulling it over. And hey, an extended workshop format is probably not the way to jump into anything physically demanding. I spent some time yesterday doing restorative yoga, because I needed to and in preparation for the continuation of the workshop tonight. But can I do it? Is it even physically possible? I will see how the day progresses and then decide.