Vinyasa Flow? Vinyasa ... Whoa!

Andrea warned me. She's one of many inspirational women I trust and admire for her honesty, spirit, and her brains. In fact it was about 3 years ago that she suggested I take a month off of everything. Real rest. Back then I lasted a week. Now I'm supposed to be resting because of my foot mainly ... and because I'm a bit burnt out ... and instead I decided to do a 30-day yoga challenge. Yes I realize that's not resting. Restorative yoga was my original goal but I couldn't always make it to those classes. Anyway, I told Andrea yesterday that I was doing this hot yoga challenge while "resting". This is exactly what she said "Rest my ass! Hot yoga will kick your ass!" That it did today. Vinyasa flow turned into Vinyasa ... whoa! This is how they describe it at the studio: "The practice is a combination of different traditions of yoga that come together for a dynamic mix of sweat and spirit. It will tone your body and electrify your mind." I couldn't have said it better myself. It was a tough class ... but at the beginning the instructor told us to set our intention for the class. My intention was to do my best to finish the class and do the postures to the best of my ability. She also told us to leave our egos outside ... I couldn't help but smile. That word has been haunting me for the last few weeks. Probably because I've got some work to do on scaling back my own ego.. And today's kick-ass class was a great reminder. Namaste.

Very Bad Timing ... Or is it?

So I'm out for at least three weeks. I can't teach my beloved Get Ripped classes. Why? Because of an injury. Not my hamstring, or shoulder, or knee. I have an overuse injury on my big toe on my left foot. Can you believe it? Who injures their big toe? So basically no impact exercises on my feet for a while ... which is pretty much a lot of what I do when I teach. What upsets me is I worked my way up the Get Ripped ladder and now I'm teaching four regular classes plus a boot camp. I had my Mondays and Fridays at Fitness Plus South and my Thursdays and Saturdays at Talisman Centre. I was a few weeks into that routine and an old injury popped up. An injury I was trying to "play through". An injury I should have dealt with a long time ago. So it basically didn't go away ... I just ignored it ... and it got worse. (Hello ego!) Very bad timing ... or is it?

After I left the physiotherapy office ... wrapping my head around the diagnosis ... I quickly sent an email to my Get Ripped boss Jari explaining everything so they can start to fill my classes with other instructors. I felt bad. I felt sad. All I was thinking was ... "All the participants are going to forget about me." Silly ... I know. But as I started to relax and slowly accept my situation I actually felt a little relief. Yes that's right ... relief. You see, I was starting to get burnt out. Fatigued. Almost falling asleep at the wheel a couple times in the middle of the day was a big wake up call for me (no pun intended). Unfortunately my ego gets the best of me and I felt I could do it all. Wrong. I'm tired. And I need to rest.

I've been going non-stop for about a year now. It started with practicing for the Get Ripped DVDs and my group fitness certification, plus training for my figure competition. That spilled right into more classes in the spring and even more in the summer. Then sprinkle in a few fitness and nutrition courses. And that's all on top of a work schedule that wreaks havoc on my energy levels. It's all AMAZING stuff! (except waking up at 3:00AM ... not so amazing). I loved it all! It was my decision to do all of those things ... but what I should have as well was scheduled in some good, solid rest time ... rest for my body, mind, and spirit. Well, it looks like my "toe" did the scheduling for me. So let me move my mega ego aside ... *ugh* ... and do what I have to do to rest, heal ... and come back stronger!

There's no whining at Hour of Honour!

I learned very early on with my trainer Nathan that complaining about anything in his workouts will cost you in sweat and muscle pain. There's no whining at Hour of Honour. In fact, for the first few weeks I attended, I barely spoke or made eye contact with him. I just did what I was told. Well today I was trying to play Superwoman but I couldn't handle it any longer. I had a sharp pain in my left knee that I've been feeling when I run on the treadmill for the last few weeks. I had a run right before going to Hour of Honour and had to cut it short by about 5 minutes because of the sharp pain every time my left foot hit the tread. I was not impressed. But like a true athlete I thought I could "play through". So off I went with my Superwoman cape blowing in the wind from my gym to the Athlete Factory where Nate puts us through our paces. We started with our regular warm-up laps ... and bang ... sharp pain in the knee hit me at the end of lap 2. I had to walk the last little bit. I resisted saying anything for a few seconds then I thought I have to. So all I did was yell "Pain in the knee" and I pointed to it. Nathan said "Pain in my ear!" But then he eventually modified a few exercises for me. I felt like wimp. I wanted to do backwards leap frogs. I wanted to do one-legged squats and go all the way down like everyone else. I wanted to do full out sprints. (Wow. I can't believe I just said that.) But I couldn't do those things tonight. I felt like a total whiner and I felt like Nathan was annoyed. I need to get over that.

So what did I learn from all of this? That sometimes EGO gets in the way. For such a small word, it can have such a BIG impact on so many things. Have you checked your EGO lately? You may be surprised at what you find.