Half Moon OUCH!

Photo found via Pinterest

Half Moon Pose seemed to go on forever and ever and EVER!   You start with your arms up and first you lean to one side like in the picture, then the other, then backwards, and at last you bend forward until your face is pressed to your shins.   And you do it twice.  It seems fairly straightforward but if you are doing it correctly (or hell, even half correctly!) and making sure you have your weight shifted where it should be and all of your body parts are pushed forward or back or lifted according to where they are supposed to be, you get a tremendous stretch throughout your body and it's not so easy anymore.

Normally, I like this posture a lot.   When I bend to the left, I can't go as far as I can on the right because it's stretching my bad hip and it almost but not quite hurts to do it.  It is kind of like when you get a massage and it sort of hurts but not exactly.   It's a good hurt.  Today, in class, I was experiencing that nice 'good hurt' and getting a nice stretch and it just kept going on, and on, and on!   Likely it was my perception, but it seemed to me (& my friend!!!) that the teacher was having us hold the positions just a little bit longer than usual.  I'm not sure if I was lacking energy because I had stayed up too late the night before or should have eaten more than a bowl of cereal for the dinner the night before or if was purely random that I was struggling to keep my arms above my head.

Really, it was an infinitesimal amount of time longer but as I stood there pressing my palms together and stretching my arms away from my body I could have sworn it was a lifetime.  My arms were aching and I was dripping in sweat before the first set was even finished.  I literally was excited when we did the fourth part of the first set and bent forward just so I could put my arms down.  I wanted to wrap my arms around my legs, never let go, and shout 'I'm so happy to see you legs!'

I think that would have gotten more than a few strange looks.  =\

During class I felt frustrated with the teacher because of my perception that she was 'torturing us' and I felt a little annoyed the first few minutes after class finished.   Class ended perfectly at the 90 minute mark so I know that the teacher didn't actually have us hold any of the postures longer than is the correct amount of time.  The cold air outside of the studio refreshed me and cleared my thoughts.   I felt good.  Really, really good.   I had felt like I was struggling (more than usual!) in class but that was a good thing to feel pushed and keep working to do my best.   I'm thankful to that teacher for being 'tough' (or me feeling like she is! there's that perception thing again!) because I think that inspires students* to keep trying and never give up.

* I shared with another friend of mine who wasn't in class this morning about how 'torturous and brutal' class felt and she knew right away what teacher I had before I told her who it was.  Hahaha!   Either we share the same exact perception or maybe the teacher really IS a bit of an awesome, tough badass.