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Introduction:
You wouldn't think that yoga would be an adventure, would you? This yoga is. Yoga at 6 am in Keystone is both a challenge and a blessing. Tl;dr: Open air "standing yoga" on cold concrete in the open air at 6 AM with no mat is not this yogini's vessel-contained herbal infusion.
Details:
I'm finding it difficult to type this right now, because I still haven't fully regained the circulation in my fingertips. That will give you an idea of what I'm going to say.
I was both excited and dismayed to see yoga on the schedule for this year's InstructureCon. Excited, because I've been "practicing" yoga for over 40 years now (and those quotation marks are deliberate; even after all this time, I'm still a novice and I learn something new every day)....and dismayed, because even though I'm an early riser, I was daunted by a schedule that displayed all of the evening fun, followed by yoga commencing at 6 the next morning. My Google Calendar was showing me a woefully small gap between the two.
Nevertheless, I packed my yoga togs. Sleep? Who needs sleep?
Recommendation:
I was surprised to learn that the yoga classes would be held at the Lakeside Pavilion --that is, outdoors. And that's fine, except it's cold at six in the morning in Keystone. I wish I had known we would be practicing yoga al fresco; I would have packed differently.
Also, upon arriving at Keystone I discovered that the scheduled shuttles wouldn't start running until 6 AM. Fortunately, there are options. From where I'm staying, the walk to the Lakeside Pavilion is a pleasant 20 minutes. Or, on-call shuttle service is available for these special outlying events.
I arrived at the Lakeside Pavilion in plenty of time to get situated and snap a pic.
That's the view across the lake at 5:50 this morning. The Lakeside Pavilion is faintly visible to the right.
The start of the class brought what, for me, were a few unwelcome surprises. First, I learned that mats would not be provided. Second, we were told that because we wouldn't be using mats, we'd be doing a "standing" practice. "Standing" practice is a misnomer, because such poses still require the practitioner to place one's hands firmly upon the ground regularly. And said ground consisted of cold, hard concrete, That cold concrete was cold.
When the planks and downward facing dogs required us to place our hands on the ground on the regular, I realized that I had lost the circulation to the fingertips of my right hand. I'm sure that that didn't happen to everyone, but it caused me to bail from the class midway through. It's an hour and a half later, and my fingers are finally feeling normal.
The bottom line? I'm from Florida, so for me, this was just too cold. Around 35 people attended this morning's practice, and they probably enjoyed it. But me? I'm skipping tomorrow's practice and will instead do a little self-guided practice in my toasty room.
