Preppy Runner – Theodora Blanchfield

I’ve been doing yoga much more regularly over the past few months.

Om…

I push myself hard in running, and in life, and I want yoga to be the opposite. I want it to be where I go to chill the eff out from all that other pushing myself hard in life.

But if I show up, I’m going to work hard, whatever hard is for me that day. As a still yoga newbie, I’ve taken things pretty slowly and carefully because I’m terrified of twisting myself into some weird pretzel-y shape and getting stuck there or ripping some muscle straight off my body, but I work hard within my own limits.

I’ve stopped looking around at everyone else and started focusing on my own damn self, but there’s one pose that I know everyone else is doing but me when the instructor cues for it: full wheel pose.

I did gymnastics up until sophomore year of high school and I could pop into a bridge or a backbend like it was no thing, but I’m now 30 years old and my body is a little more creaky. During yoga in Times Square last year, I was so freaking determined to get into full wheel. One of the assistants helped me into it, and it literally took every bit of upper body strength I had. It was humbling how hard it was for me.

Yesterday, I took a class with Jen and was having a particularly good yoga day. My balance and focus were strong, and I was feeling totally blissed out. Err, blissed in. When we got to bridge, I first just did my regular bridge. The second bridge, I put a block under my sacrum (lower back) and was just chilling there for a second…when I decided to just go for it, and I popped up fairly easy into a full wheel!

Whether it was always that easy, or whether I’ve needed the time to build up to it mentally and physically, I don’t know. But I was amazed at how easily it came (I mean, despite already being part of the way up.) I hung out there for a while and then let myself down slowly. To my pleasant surprise, the awesome teaching assistant had moved the block out of my way for me. We did one final bridge/full wheel pose, and I got right back up there.

I took a chance on pushing myself outside of my comfort zone, and it worked.

Boom.

What was the last thing you did that pushed you outside of your comfort zone. Yoga people, tell me about either that one freaking pose that totally eludes you and you would die to do sometime…or a pose you recently conquered.