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Hot Yoga


I did something to my left wrist last Friday - I don't know what, because it didn't hurt at the time. I woke up Saturday with a terrible pain along the pinky edge. It was so severe, I couldn't even hold up a book in that hand, and bending it left was excruciating. My right wrist was hurting, too, but not nearly to the same extent. It all started the previous Monday when I went to my first kobudo class, followed by a very painful karate class. On Saturday I went to bed that night with my brace on and strapped it so tight, the nerves in my palm were pinched for the entire following day.

It's been jacked up since, and only today does it feel a bit better. I've had to skip all my combat classes this week, which has made me feel languid and stifled; but I tried to replace them with other things like biking, pole work, and... hot yoga.

Tiffany from Miss Pole recommended a place in Tosa a while back, and I've been wanting to give it a shot but just haven't been able to fit it in. Well, since I couldn't do anything involving my hands, and my upper body was feeling insanely tight and stiff, I decided this would be the week I try it.

It was just what I needed. I felt so much better afterward. My body wasn't nearly as stiff and my headache had gone away. I was a bit nervous that I would be around people who had been doing yoga for years and were much more flexible and strong that I, but I was actually doing better than most people. My balance wasn't nearly as good as I feel like it normally is; but in terms of strength, I was far succeeding everyone else there.

I was really happy that we worked on hand and headstands because I've been really wanting to learn them for a while now, and I haven't been able to make any strides on my own. I needed an instructor to guide me through it.

I was able to talk with the instructor after class about how to best work on hand/headstands, and she gave me some great tips, which was basically to use your lower abs to pull yourself up. That's not an area I have used much in pole but have been working on in my free time exercises. Last night I practiced doing hand/headstands utilizing her advice, and it made a big difference. Even though this isn't an area of my body that I use very much in other forms of exercise, I think it will eventually have an impact on pole, since a lot of more advanced moves like the Iron X will definitely need it.

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