Seeking An Extraordinary Life - A Travel Journal

Deidre is out at work during the day, but for three days straight we do yoga each night. We switch back and forth between It's Yoga and a wonderful donation yoga studio - Blue Sky. It's actually the back room of a little art gallery in the downtown area of Vegas, and we practice our asanas and vinyasas under the gaze of Bettie Page prints and symbolic fertility paintings.

We have a different teacher each session, and thus a different approach each time. There's Bum, a skinny, dreamy hippy guy who dresses entirely in tie-dye with a huge woolly hat and can throw his feather-light body into extraordinary contortions with grace, Anna Thea, a slightly intense lady with a huge mad grin full of love and welcome who teaches heart-opening yoga, woman power and kundalini, and Melissa, who is younger, matter-of-fact and firm.

I'm starting to feel the real benefits of the practice through this intense approach. I feel more graceful and balanced, more in touch with my body, and I feel calmer and more focussed in everyday life too. I'm starting to adjust the little details of the poses - how my body weight falls, positions of the toes and fingers, eyeline, and most of all the mental stance and breathing as I'm less distracted by my body's complaints. I'm starting to develop a craving for healthy food too, especially green vegetables. After every session Deidre and I return to the house like zombies, crooning "greeen theeeengs", and stuff ourselves with salads and steamed broccoli.

Labels: blue sky, it's yoga, las vegas

The day is fairly uneventful - Deidre is out at work, and I spend most of it working on the blog and catching up on email. When she arrives home, we make a quick change and head out for yoga.
Despite my good intentions, I haven't been to a yoga class since my amazing first experience at Candlelight Yoga in Reno - I would have started in San Francisco, but Beginners Acrobatics took its place instead. Actually the acrobatics practice was in many ways equally good, and even used some of the same exercises (Hannah and Leo both do yoga too) for conditioning and strength.

"It's Yoga" have another beautifully painted studio, with an airy entranceway and soft lighting which immediately puts me in a calm mood. Although I know this is going to be hard and at times painful, I'm buzzed to be getting back to yoga practice. The instructor is both more businesslike than Jackie and a little easier on us, not pushing the poses as long or moving from one to the next as fast.

To my joy I find that my acrobatics practices, stretches and general higher level of exercise in the City have paid off - I'm far stronger and more flexible than I was before, and poses which were agony in Reno I can now sustain with just a little effort. I also feel more graceful and find it easier to flow from one pose into the next. It's still an intensive workout and I'm dripping sweat by the time we reach the peak and begin to move into lower, less intense poses, finally coming to rest in Shavasana for a few minutes of silent meditation.

Walking out both Deidre and I are slightly wobbly, glowing and exhilerated, with that amazing feeling of being cleansed, cleaned out and radiating health. We're also starving, and in the mood for something substantial but not like putting too many toxins back into our bodies. Thai food seems a good option and Deidre has a favourite local restaurant, Archie's Thai Kitchen, which is just round the corner. We munch incredible Thai food and slowly melt into our chairs as the endorphins wipe out all rational thought.

Labels: archie's thai kitchen, it's yoga, las vegas, yoga