Understand Yoga, Check.

I wake up and my body is worse than when I went to bed. I had minor chaffing after the first lesson, but it was pretty much healed when I woke up yesterday (or so I thought...maybe that's why it got so bad). But today my entire body is still very much in pain and bumpy. I don't think I can surf like this. So I talk to my mother and grandmother and inform Chris I will not be going to today's lesson.
That means I can go back to sleep, but unfortunately, I'm already awake. So I FaceTime my mother and the dog (Lyla) starts barking at me. I still cannot understand her (maybe if she was a Chesapeake instead of French [Mastiff]...), but no doubt she's yelling at me for leaving her. Then she leaves me for some ice cream! So then I snapchat Patrick because although Lyla may be my best friend at home, Patrick is my best friend anywhere (any time, any place).
So I show him my new awful skin condition, and he's like "yeah it's common from the board wax, just lotion it". Uh, okay. First off, I know it's common; it's not new to me. I always get it on my arms, and, if I'm not wearing a rash guard, on my stomach. But never on literally every single surface of my skin that was in any way exposed. Plus, they didn't even wax my board(s) because they were soft tops. No idea why that means they don't get waxed, but they didn't. & finally, I don't have lotion. I'm in Bali. Like you're supposed to make me feel better not tell me what I don't want to hear. But if he just told me things I wanna hear (although I would no doubt seriously love it), that would be a pretty weird/messed up friendship.

At 10 I had yoga. This time it was yin yoga. For yin yoga, you hold a certain pose for 5 minutes, so it's like intense stretching. It wasn't as fun as flight high yoga, but I was not disinterested or bored. I didn't realize I could stay that calm/still for so long. Also, in the harder poses we learned what our bodies do to try to escape discomfort.  First I fidget. Like a lot. Then if I can successfully manage to stop/lessen the fidgeting, my body shakes. It is becoming very apparent to me lately that my body shakes when it's upset. I learned this years ago, actually, when I was so sad once that my body literally shook for 3 days straight. It was terrible and terrifying. Unfortunately, these days I'm involuntarily (well, it's always involuntary) reverting back to the shaking when subconsciously (or an insane amount of consciously) I'm upset. I also learned that to try to stop myself from such involuntary actions (fidgeting/twitching, shaking, and even kicking when my foot is touched - it's a reflex -, etc) I clench. Definitely my jaw, sometimes my hands, and even my knees (no wonder they're so bad) when applicable(/they're not involved in the involuntary act or yoga pose). I learned a lot about myself while observing my body during yoga, which leads to one point in completion of my second study abroad goal, understand yoga.
After trying AcroYoga and Fly High Yoga, I understand that people do them because they are extremely fun. Like you're literally on top of someone or playing in a swing. & they're supposed to have health benefits?! How lovely!
Yin yoga, on the other hand, is not as fun but in addition to learning some semi-useful information about yourself, holding the poses for an extended time (such as five minutes) allows the muscles to relax, therefore working the yin tissue. This tissue is literally everywhere in your body, but doesn't get properly worked/used/stretched/I'm-not-really-sure while your muscles are engaged. Yin yoga essentially gives your tissues and organs a massage from the inside, releasing a bunch of toxins from the tissue. But it doesn't hurt like a massage, it's literally the stretches we're (at least cheerleaders are) used to, but holding them a little longer. Yes it leads to discomfort sometimes, but I'm discomfortable 80% of the time anyways.
I've only began to understand/discover three types of yoga, and none are the tradition fancy pose, head stand, super flexible images or stereotypes or perceptions I even still have when I think of yoga. But now I understand that there are many (more than one) types of yoga, and they're all bound to have different reasons why they are how they are and why people do them and that obviously depends a lot upon the individual as well, but I've come to learn about and understand three forms of yoga and to me that is a successful competition of goal #2, understand yoga.
Also for each yoga session we randomly select a rock out of a box. That rock has a word on it which we can either choose to focus on or simply put to the side. Both times, by random selection, I chose the "compassion" rock. Not sure what that means; maybe God is trying to tell me I need to be more compassionate. I just thought it was interesting.
After yoga I went back and got a large coconut (I had already eaten the breakfast before yoga). I needed the coconut water and, let's be real, small coconuts are never enough. OMG. It's a good thing this coconut only cost like 2USD. It was huge! Literally bigger than my head. It didn't taste nearly as sweet as the South Pacific coconuts and I think I prefer my Caribe cocos, but I was still going to try to drink it all. I sat there drinking for as long as I could and when I couldn't drink anymore I took it back to my room for later. Although I kept drinking it all throughout the day and night, I couldn't finish it, so I can't even tell you/imagine what the meat was like because I never got to it. It was like an endless bottom coconut!

After all my toxins were released via the yoga and the coconut, I quickly fell asleep, sleeping past my paddleboard session. But my hands were too raw to hold the paddle anyways (I still couldn't touch most things - my hair, the sheets, etc), so it was okay. When I did awaken, I caught a glimpse of the sunset and decided to head to the beach for a better look (and to see where exactly this beach spot was. The Rama Garden sign wasn't on the beach but in between some posts several dozen meters away from the beach).
Once I'd had enough, I decided to take the road into town (the other way) to look for food. I saw an open restaurant and went for it. Parts of the food were alright; others were too spicy for my tasting. But the real problem was the bugs. I was being eaten more than the restaurant's food! Caroline (the yogi) is careful to warn us of the bugs and gives us bug spray, but I must've washed it off. I'm scared because it's been a really bad year in Bali for some mosquito disease - over 30 people on this little island have it and there are streets in Ubud filled with victims. If you have it you have to have blood
work every other day or be on IVs in the hospital so I don't want it. As soon as I get the check I head over to the shop across the street to buy and apply bug spray for the walk back.
I make it back alive and head to bead again.
I'm like a sloth; I sleep more in a day than I'm awake. I'd like to say my average ideal awake time is 8 (hours), give or take 4 (4-12 hours). Obviously I';m usually awake a lot longer than that, but on my off days, bet that's all I'm awake for. Today was one of those days.

Until next time,

xoxo,

Tasha