The Law School Transplant - If you don't find me helpful, hopefully you'll find me at least mildly entertaining.

It’s hard to believe that I’m already at the end of my second week of Yoga Journal’s online 21-day challenge, and of my additional vegetarian challenge. That also means it’s been five weeks since I undertook the initial DVD 21-day challenge. As the saying goes, time flies when you’re having fun.

I have to admit, my enthusiasm for the challenge dropped off significantly this week. I suppose that’s mostly due to five straight weeks of doing some combination or sequence of the same 13 practices (I mentioned last week that I was a little ticked off about the online challenge consisting of the same practices as the DVD, just in a different order). I had been doing really well until the weekend, and then missed two days (Friday and Sunday)! I could have kicked myself.

To get back into the swing of things, I treated myself to a real, actual yoga class this evening at my favorite local studio. I was sore from playing tennis on Sunday, but once the class started, I forgot all about the achy muscles and creaky joints. Classes are generally longer than a DVD practice, but they move at a slightly slower pace. Poses are held for much longer, though, which makes me get past that point where it’s slightly uncomfortable. I’m always amazed at what my body can do – the postures it can hold, and the lengths of time for which it holds them – when I just give it the opportunity.

Maybe I’ve been away from live classes too long, or maybe my brain was tired, but it felt like something a little bit magical happened tonight. I don’t know if I can quite put it into words, but I’ll try: This particular studio is on the second floor of a building situated right in the middle of our little downtown area. Also, a massive fog descended earlier today, reducing visibility to virtually nothing. So, looking out the windows during class, all I could see was fog and the hazy glow of streetlights. I felt like I was tucked in a treehouse in the middle of the clouds.

As we got to the end of class, we took eka pada rajakapotasana (pigeon) as our final pose. While I’m usually not a fan of pigeon, at that particular moment it was the only thing I wanted to do. And when we got to the second side of the pose, I felt something release; I just let go and melted into the floor – hip, forehead, arms, everything. We stayed there for a good long while, and I felt so safe and content and at peace in pigeon, enveloped in my cozy little treehouse in the clouds. (Still no crying. Maybe it’ll happen one day.) I wish I could bottle that feeling and carry it around with me, because it was truly amazing.

My vegetarian experiment is still going well; no major meat cravings to speak of (though I’m a little tired of black bean burgers). On the yoga front, I’ve decided to forego doing the specific practices assigned to each day for the remainder of the challenge (that is, unless a certain one strikes me as particularly appealing). Instead, I’m going to broaden my horizons with more live classes, other DVDs and maybe even some of my own practices. I’m going to listen to my body and do what seems right in that moment. If I want to kick my own butt with an hour of Shiva Rea, I will do that. On the other hand, if I play tennis for two hours, I’ll probably just do a few gentle poses to work out my lower back and then take savasana. And that, I have come to learn, is perfectly okay.