Taken Aback

Ready for some whine?

I went to yoga class last night but couldn't do all the poses because of my stinkin'tendonitis elbow. Can't put weight on it so I did downward facing dog lightly on a chair and all my standing poses had a crooked aspect to them thanks to my non-straightening arm. *sigh*

Toward the end of class we were separated into people doing shoulder stand and people not inverting (me!), who were told to do supported bridge pose at the wall. I had one blanket & a block, so I set them up at the wall, and went across the room to get a few more blankets and a strap. Another lady is setting up her shoulder stand blankets right up next to where mine is, and it is clear that her legs will fall across my body if she does so. Before I go on...

I love my teacher. I love my class! People go in and out of it, move up levels, but there is a core group of us that has been there a while. We are in the smaller studio of the two in the building, and we are often crammed like sardines. But hey! It's yoga! There's always room for one more mat. Whenever someone comes in and it looks like there's no space, we're always scootching our mats over, saying, "come over here! Plenty of room!"

Back to last night. I said to the lady (and this is either someone who was new to our class because I didn't know her, or she was dropping in) "Oh, I just set up here because I'm doing bridge pose. But you can take my spot over there (there was a nice big opening in the middle of the room), I'll move my mat, I can't do shoulder stand today."

She says, "no, I'd prefer to be in the spot I've been all night. There's a spot across the room that you can take."

I was taken aback. I tend to speak my mind, but this was YOGA class for goodness sake, and although I was teetering on the brink of bitchiness, I just couldn't let it happen. Even though I did put my blanket down first! Anyway, I smiled sweetly, said "*I* don't mind," picked up my stuff (with my hurt elbow, sniff sniff) and went across the room to a rather pinched spot, but I made it work. Because that's what we do, we make it work.

In final relaxation I couldn't relax very well because my brain was still stamping it's pissed off little feet. Ugh. So next week, if she's there, I'm going to sit next to her. Say hi, get to know her. Sometimes my teacher makes us move to different places in the room to get us out of our comfort zone. I need to move across to her side to get back into mine.