My Advanced Class Experience

So I find myself dragging the left side of my face across my sweat-soaked Aquazorb towel while my legs are trapped in lotus position trying to get up from a pose where I had to press both shoulders to the floor. I cannot untangle my legs to save my life and knew that I was in trouble when the teachers said "Change!" That pretty much sums up my experience attending an advanced class. Struggle, struggle, and more struggle.

An advanced class is composed of the 84 classic asanas practiced with the teacher demonstrating and taking the lead. 

Here is a poster featuring THE Bikram Choudhury doing all the poses in perfection. 

Photo from yogilifestyle.com

Even though I was nowhere near looking like ANY of the pictures above I was able to realize some things that would definitely help me in my yoga journey. 

1. More than anything, attending the advanced class broadened my horizons. It made me realize that beyond the 26 poses of the beginner's course there is so much more out there to aspire and achieve in this yoga journey.

2. It was an honor to witness strong and inspiring yogis performing pose after pose in utter perfection. 

3. The advanced class made the beginner's course look...easy! Although I know it is NOT at all a walk in the park, I'm sure that my experience in the advanced class will help me pull through when I'm in the middle of the poses that are more challenging to me like Standing Head to Knee. 

Photo from ohmybikram.wordpress.com

It will remind me that there are far more difficult poses than probably the one I am in. 

This is all of us after the class. Yay, we made it to the end!