Bendable me.

Being pregnant has taught me things about my body I never realized. For instance, did you know that a hip can fall asleep? I call it "dead hip." It literally feels like there is no blood flow at all going to my hips when I wake up in the middle of the night. I even had a dream one night that I went to the doctor's for an ultrasound and rather than checking on the baby, they did the ultrasound on my hips. The doctor frowned and told me that my hips had no blood in them and that could damage the baby. Yikes. Anyway, to deal with these new aches and pains I've been going to yoga 2-3 times per week, and it's amazing. I love, love, love prenatal yoga. It's a lot of stretching, but there's no messing around - I definitely break a sweat, and it feels like I've done something good for my body. At the end of the classes we do a Shavasana where we relax in a semi-lying position with eye pillows and huge bolsters. Then, the teacher comes around and gives everyone a minute scalp massage. Freaking awesome.

A minor tangent here... In Baltimore, I used to take this yoga class from this crazy old dude who was a lawyer by day, yoga instructor by night. He was quirky to say the least, but his classes were only $5 each (pretty unheard of for yoga these days). So, during Shavasana, he had this routine he would go through...something like this: "Brinnngggggg the awareness to your head! RELAXXXX your head! (10 second pause)...Brinnngggggg the awareness to your face! RELAXXXX your face!" He would proceed like this until he made it down to our toes. The best line of his routine by far was when he would chant, "Brinnngggggg the awareness to your genitals! RELAXXXX your genitals!" Inevitably, some newbie in the class would be sent into convulsions as she tried to silently snicker (yes, this was me at my first few classes).

So bringing it back...everytime I'm in Shavasana, even now, I start chanting his little routine in my head. It's like a tape recorder that automatically hits play. I must admit I'm really tempted just to bust out with it in class spontaneously, but I'd probably have a bunch of overheated pregnant women chucking yoga blocks at my head. "Bringggg the awareness to your dead hips! RELAXXXX your dead hips!"