I do a number of stretching exercises at the beginning of my workout and I treat them like a yoga asana. That is, I use ujjayi breathing and I stretch only on the exhale. I do ten stretches during my workout so I am essentially doing ten asanas. That’s too much for me, I’m good for four or five asanas and that’s it. Not because they are physically difficult, I run around the tennis court in 95 degree weather for two and a half hours, I should be able to manage nine asanas. It’s the breathing that exhausts me. That is the reason I don’t take yoga classes, instead I take periodic private lessons. That is also the reason I will modify my workout stretches to stop using the ujjayi breath and instead breath normally but continue to stretch only on the exhale.

Historically, yoga has not been taught in classes, it has been taught privately. Think about it, here you are in a yoga class with lots of other people all doing the same pose. Granted, a pose has many variations, but the poses that would benefit me are likely to be drastically different than the poses you might need. Also, my private lessons provide an opportunity to talk about difficulties I might be having and how yoga can help me. It might mean a particular choice of asanas or a particular breathing pattern or it might be the exercise of writing down my current projects so can I see how ridiculously overcommitted I am and I can throw out unimportant projects. Such as this blog.

Practice Report: worked out at the gym for 1 1/2 hrs.