Focus!

Tonight I went to a very challenging yoga class. Tough both physically and mentally. It was physically tough because I was tired from a long day and a snowy 6 mile run. We did a ton of standing balancing poses with twists and flowing transitions that required a lot of strength to stay in them.

But mentally this practice was even tougher. There were lots of distractions during class. There were two men in the row in front of me that were having a contest over who could breath the loudest. Now I'm all for loud breathing during yoga but this was just ridiculous! What they were doing wasn't breathing but rather a combination of an om and a loud sigh. And you could tell they were doing it in some testosterone induced competition with each other....one would do it and then the other would do it louder (and in his mind, better). As if that wasn't distracting enough, there were a group of college girls right behind me that would laugh to each other when the noisy men were extra loud!

I realized I was focusing more on what was going on around me than what was happening on my mat. I got so caught up in other people's breath that I forgot my own. So I took a child's pose to re-center and re-entered my practice with much more inner focus. All of a sudden those standing twists were a little easier to balance in!

I need to try to do this more in my everyday live. Granted I can't drop to child's pose in the middle of my lab, but I can remember to focus on myself more and not so much on what other people are doing!