Thursday, July 10, 2014

First 13 Weeks

So how it has been to practice for the last 8-9 months?  It went through phases and it goes through phases each week. And each day is different…

I kind of sensed that I have gotten pregnant the second week of my pregnancy.  Right after I suspected I was pregnant, I also realized that I was getting short of breath when I showed and talked at the same time while teaching.  Shortness of breath is related to increasing blood volume in the body with the pregnancy and this was very evident, very soon to me. 


The first 5 weeks I was my normal self during my own practice, so I did practice everything except I did not jump around and I modified closed twists to open twists except Pravritta Trikonasana.  I actually still do Pravritta Trikonasana.  Since I focus on twisting the chest and keeping the hips parallel to do floor, it seems to work…  We even went to a David Garrigues workshop in Amsterdam during the 4th week.   But as soon as we get back from David’s workshop, nausea began! And it got worse and worse :p So, I was throwing up at least once a day if not more, had headaches and sensitivity to light…  I was going to school three times a week to learn Danish and teaching few classes. After a while, the morning practice became a bit of a hell…  Even raising my head in sun salutations was not possible. So, I could do maybe sun salutations and maybe standing poses during this time.  A week before new years, when I was still desperate to figure out how to practice, I tried to do Iyengar yoga sequence for three days from the book called “Iyengar yoga for Motherhood”, to see if it would work better.  The first day was fine; it seemed to help the nausea. However,  the following days nausea was back, and perhaps worse because being that static did not help either.  Then, I tried to not do any yoga for two days but that did not feel good either.  Finally, I figured out which should have been a no brainer; trying to practice in the morning to an empty stomach was the problem!  The whole nausea thing was usually due to empty stomach, at least in the mornings…  My system was using the food much faster than usual.  They say that during the first 3 months of pregnancy, it is like hiking a mountain everyday for the body.  Therefore, I decided to practice one hour after breakfast to see if that would be okay and tada!!! That was the solution… 

After Christmas break, Danish classes began again, then I had to practice in the afternoons some days, but it was always good to not have empty stomach in contrast to how I usually would practice. During this period, I practiced everyday some of primary about 45 minutes, in a good day 60 minutes, skipping the vinyasas between the sides. I did not really stick to a routine of asanas, so each day, I did poses that felt good to do.  I also sneaked in few poses from second series, especially parighasana to lengthen my side body, which I needed and which I still do.  Moreover, I included Parivritta and Ardha Chandrasana after Parsvottanasana to keep my hips strong.  And not to forget back bends... they were not my favorite during this time but doing Dwipada Pitham felt really nice, so some of the times I would just do that and maybe do couple of regular shoulder bridges instead of Urdhva Danurasana.  Dwipada Pitham is like a vinyasa, one moves between raising the hips and arms over head with an inhale and then with an exhale moving the hips down and arms back to the side of the body. One can leave out the arm movement and just move the hips up and down with synchronized breath, I personally like the arm movement. During the days I do not feel up to Urdhva Danurasana, this is the way I go... 

This was the first 13 weeks. Then a whole new phase began...
TBC...

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