I woke up this morning before the 5:30 alarm. When I got out of bed, my left knee (the same side as my bad ankle) was very stiff. Not very painful, just not willing to fully straighten. I hobbled to get Gidget’s leash and told her to take it easy on Mommy going down the stairs. We survived Going Down the Stairs for the Morning Pee without too much trouble. (Thank God she’s not a big dog and doesn’t pull.) It’s just mildly painful, the joint itself just stiffens up and doesn’t want to flex normally and needs time to wake up. (And my bum ankle has been feeling better after just 4 days of getting back on the mat, so overall, everything is getting better.)
20 minutes and a jumbo mug of coffee later and my knee was back to normal, so I did Move Day 4.
My body does make alarming noises, which is also why a home practice is right for me. The cracking and popping noises are sometimes alarming. My knees are loud, there are these cracking sounds as tendons tight from endless desk work unclench and rearrange themselves. It’s entirely painless. If you heard my knees popping in chair pose this morning you’d swear I was doing horrible damage, but afterward my knees feel so much better. Yoga really is wonderful for old joints.
And I feel my core again! I joke that I don’t have a core, I have a liquid center from decades of desk work. I’m not sore, I just have that pleasant feeling of neglected muscles waking up. It’s very motivating to continue a daily practice.
I am wildly out of shape and my transitions between poses are godawful, but I got it done. Once upon a time, like a whole year ago, I could press up from cobra into a plank without struggling. That shit ain’t happening right now. The extra 10 lbs on top of the 15 I’ve been talking about losing and not doing yoga for many months – yeah, my transitions are not pretty. I’ve lost so much strength and flexibility just in 2021, it’s a wake-up call about the importance of exercise.
I have concluded that yoga and bullet journaling and basically anything shared on social media gets competitive and shaming – “I am not artistic enough to do a bullet journal” (bullshit, it’s an organizational tool, watercolors and fancy spreads are totally optional). “I can’t do yoga the way Adriene does it!” She’s the teacher, you don’t have to be as good as she is, and she repeats this constantly in the videos.
My lunge from a 3-legged downward dog really ain’t pretty. I don’t lunge gracefully (see aforementioned knees) but eventually I get there after a lot of adjustments. I’m fine with this.
It wasn’t pretty but it felt good. “Day 4 is in the books.” And I’m feeling really good about sticking with this for the entire program.
Work. Oh, my. Two days into the year and I just want to buy lottery tickets and pray for the chance to retire. I’m too old for this shit.
Me toooo re the lottery! I adore big dogs but there’s no way I could ever manage one on these stairs. My daughter has the most handsome and charming mix of pit bull, American Foxhound, and beagle (seriously, she ran his DNA) and there is no way in hell I’d do these stairs with him, because he’s entirely unfamiliar with the concept of stairs and would probably fall down them and kill us both. My stairs are not the open kind like at apartments, these are “fancy” condos and I have a curved staircase with a landing and it’s all solid and walled, but a big clumsy oaf of a dog like him can’t be trusted to visit Grandma.
Sounds great and you do encourage me to do more! I’m not too sure about yoga but I must find something that gets me going. Luckily Gidget isn’t a German Shepard! Thank you for all the updates and I wish you could win the lottery!