May 1, 2009 - Limbering Up

Today the baby and I went to our first prenatal yoga class at Sun and Moon Yoga Studio. We read that it can make labor a bit easier because of the increased strength and flexibility, breathing, and awareness of your body. It's been YEARS since I tried yoga. I'd decided that yoga was too slow for me. I'm not very patient and tend to prefer higher intenstiy workouts. I walked into class and faced a room of five other women laying down doing some relaxation breathing. All five were VERY pregnant. The Sesame Street song "One of these things is not like the other" immediately started running through my head. 

I really liked the relaxation in the beginning and at the end of class. The room was clean and quiet, the music was soothing, and I felt very still. It's definitely going to take me a few more classes to learn how to relax. I kept noticing myself being tense because I wasn't sure if I had my blankets set up correctly or if my head was in the right position. Mood lighting and soothing music isn't sufficient to counteract my type A tendencies. 

I found that although the poses and stretches were pretty simple and they offered a lot of modifications, they were hard! I was pretty tight from my other workouts this week, but my old ailments like my back, neck, and wrist problems made some of the moves challenging. While everyone else was using the wall, I had to use a chair to take the pressure off my wrists. The modifications wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't the LEAST PREGNANT PERSON IN THE CLASS! My concern must have been apparent because after class the kind woman next to me said she too has chronic back problems and had been terified that pregnancy would make it worse. She said that it actually got better during pregnancy. She thought it might have been because your body starts to loosen up. Here's hoping!

I think I'm going to continue to go. Hopefully some concentrated stretching each week will do my body some good. Plus, it's kind of fun to be in a room full of women who understand the aches and pains, even if we are breathing together in lieu of talking. I only wish there was a co-ed version so that Paul could come to prenatal yoga with me!