126/140 Obama Wins

9:30 am with Connease

I don't have any political comments, but I'm typing this while listening to Obama's acceptance speech.  It's a pretty remarkable, and memorable, moment.

I took two days off in a row.  The first was deliberate; the second less so.  I felt really good both days, and yesterday I was bouncing around with the dogs, doing some jumping and hopping that I haven't done in months.  This morning, I felt a little popping in my knees, which means I might have pushed it just a little too hard.

Class was brutal.  It started at 98 degrees and 60% humidity, which wasn't so bad.  But it kept getting hotter and hotter.  By the end of standing series, it was 105 degrees and 50% humidity.  It was bad enough that I sneaked a peek.  And at the end of class it was 109 degrees and 41% humidity.  It was easily the hottest class I can remember.  The Zeb classes that I thought were crushing ended up at about 107 and 41%.

It's not that surprising that my stamina suffered --- a lot.  It was surprising, however, that I came out of the first forward bend a bit dizzy.  I was already gasping by the end of Awkward pose.  I thought about sitting out some of Eagle, because I was on the borderline with my breathing.  Then I finally lost it in the middle of Triangle, and ended up sitting out one set of Triangle, one set of Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee, and then one set of the Final Stretch.  And on top of that, I bailed out early on the third part of Locust, and in the first half of Rabbit.

After class, I was drained like I haven't been in a fairly long time.  And later in the afternoon, I had a slight headache, probably from dehydration.  When class is this hard, its difficult for me to evaluate individual poses.

I got a good correction in Fixed Firm.  Connease suggested that I spread my knees some to get my feet even straighter behind me.  That, she said, would ease up the torque on my knees some.  This is a point that I have often wondered about.  I know its preferable to have your knees together, but also acceptable to spread them if necessary.  The "if necessary" was the questionable part -- because it always seemed to me that it was never necessary.  Now I think I understand the necessity, which is a matter of alignment more than depth in the stretch.