I spent yesterday completely clearing out our "yoga room". It's a big bedroom with a walk-in closet, and now it has one platform bed and one floor lamp and the rest is completely empty except for yoga mats, props, and CD player with relaxation CD's. The walkin closet is my meditation room. It has two zafu mats and a couple of meditation cushions, and a dog bed for my dog, Sid, who sees it as a space that he can go when he's really exhausted and doesn't want to be bothered.
The "yoga room" was originally my office, so now my new office is in a small cubbyhole in one corner of our master bedroom. My life seems to be a constant, neverending shuffling of my stuff. I change hobbies, interests, friends, etc. etc. etc. Sometimes I think it stems from a childhood of being a military brat and never having developed the skill of bonding with anything or anyone. At other times I wonder whether it's something that's unsettled in my innate being. Luckily for me, this characteristics hasn't extended to my husband, family, or dogs.
Anyhow.... now we have a beautiful yoga room that is free of any outside junk save one bed, and a space for both John and I to do our practices at one time. In the meantime, I work on our family room downstairs, which will be a REAL yoga room some day. Right now it's in the middle of wallpaper stripping. What exactly would "yoga room" wallpaper look like, I wonder as I wade through downy-soaked wallpaper and puddles. I have not been able to find an answer to that, so we have yet to see where this activity will end up.
I didn't begin my practice until 10:30 last night, and I'm on the first day of week 4 of Moving Toward Balance: 8 Weeks of Yoga with Rodney Yee. I know that the first day of the week has a fairly long and intense practice, so I opted for doing day 2 of "Richard Hittleman's Yoga: 28 Day Exercise"'s revolving daily exercises. Hittleman's yoga is different from Yee's. Whereas Rodney Yee will have you do one pose for 30 seconds, Hittleman will have you do a sequence for 10-15 seconds apiece. The poses are slightly different as well. Rodney Yee's poses have made Hittleman much easier, although Hittleman poses still hit upon areas that are quite tender in my body, so I know that they are a valuable cross-yoga-training practice.
Another thing that's interesting is, Rodney Yee is much more formal in his meditation instruction. Hittleman has some breathing or imaging exercise, and then the rest of the meditation is lying quietly. I have very good meditations with Hittleman. Last night I was pleasantly surprised to find myself sinking into a state of complete relaxation and mental calm.
