Two Weeks of Yoga

This is the house at Kaomai Lanna Resort where we had yoga classes (up the stairs) for two weeks.

We have completed Anusara Immersion I and II, in all 72 study hours of yoga. I have to say it was intense. The first week felt great, I felt stronger and more flexible for every day. The second week was more hard work, not because the sessions were more tough, but because my body got a bit exhausted. Stepping up from doing yoga twice a week to doing yoga five hours a day every day is a challenge. It was still a nice feeling during the second week, it was just harder work to keep up.

So here's some of the effects on my body:

1. The mild neck tweak I had from the first week gradually disappeared. Now it's gone, which feels great. I usually need to see my chiropractor when my spine gets tweaked like this, but this time I think that a full yoga practice made sure that no blockages appeared.
2. In the middle of the second week I started to feel some strain in joints, e.g. knees, and I thought that it could be that my muscles were tired and did not support the joints as well. However, Anusara Yoga is very kind to the joints and at the end of the week I did not notice it anymore. Always using muscular energy to get a more stable and safe stretch is one of Anusara's Universal Principles of Alignment.
3. During the first week I felt I was getting lots of muscular power, but after the second week, I rather feel that my body is getting more flexible. Rome wasn't built in a day, but I can feel a slow progression towards the paradise of open hips and long hamstrings.
4. The alignment of my body in different postures is getting more automatized. I do not always have to think about activating loops and applying principles of alignment – sometimes my body knows what to do by itself. Nice.