Yoga student again

I recently made the decision to take a break from teaching Yoga. Will I teach again? Not sure. But for now there are other activities needing my attention and then there's my need to just be a Yoga student again. Being a student again feels somewhat luxurious and like work all mixed up together. Doing my own practice or teaching a pose I could always come out of the pose when I wanted to. No challenge there. Now being a student again, my teacher wants me to practice holding a pose for a longer time. Starting at 5 min and working up to 10 min. 10??!! I said to her. "Well, let's try 5." was her response.

So we worked on getting slowly into Warrior 1; grounding, balancing and then using the breath, bringing it up from the feet, up the spine, across the shoulders and out the fingertips. And holding.

After 1 min my arms started to scream. Breathe, breathe, breathe, I kept thinking. Ouch, ouch, ouch. First side was the hardest and then on the second side my body and breath were working together a little more. Not so painful and so I'm looking forward to the challenge of trying to hold this pose for longer. To finding the "ease" in the pose.

There's always the fact that left to your own practice, you find a comfort zone and I have stayed in mine a very long time. Time to expand, breathe and enjoy my Yoga once again.