I am enjoying my time away from paid work and I wanted to talk a little each day about what I am doing since resigning my position with PeopleSoft. First up, Yoga.

I have done yoga off and on over the years, mainly using videos at home and taking a class or two. In January I decided to get serious about a full time practice (even replacing my 3 day a week running routine). I signed up for a Bikram Yoga course at a local studio. I did that for two weeks and then checked out another local studio closer to my home in Portland. Bikram Yoga is a fairly modern style of yoga (Bikram Choudhury founded the Yoga College of India in Beverly Hills, California, in 1974.) and has been gaining in popularity lately. It is done in a hot room (105 degrees F) and lasts for 90 minutes. It is fairly slow moving and each pose is repeated twice (typically 60 seconds the first time 30 seconds the second time). There are lots of balancing poses and holding the poses is often a big effort – my legs would start to shake during many of the poses.

I liked the sweating aspect of the Bikram style and it felt like a great workout, but I started to notice after 6 weeks that my hips and knees were bothering me. Although I have had discomfort in my knees from time to time while running, I have never had trouble with my hip joints, and I took this as a bad sign. I have heard from friends who are experienced with yoga that Bikram is somewhat lax on the “alignment” of the poses which can lead to injury. I decided to take a break from Bikram for a while and try out Power Yoga or Ashtanga Yoga. I am starting with a tape at home for now but will start up at a studio in the near future.

My goal with the yoga is to build up to a daily practice that I can take anywhere with me. I would like this to be a life long practice that I can continue long after my short break from work. I was also working on a meditation practice, but I have been slacking at that a bit in the last few weeks – time to get motivated again!