Date: 12/18/21
Training Day: 12
Activity: Strength – Foundation

How It Felt: The third workout of the week is definitely the hardest. Not because I’m worn out from the previous two, it’s just harder. But it felt easier than last week, so that’s positive!

Commentary: During my first chiropractor visit he told me I didn’t know how to squat. Since then I’ve been working on improving my form and trying to get into malasana, the deep squat position. Multiple times a week I propped my bum up on a yoga block and sat in malasana for two minutes. Sometimes I ditched the block and held onto my spin bike for support.

My strength workout had squats in it. During one of the sets I almost tilted backwards. Some folks might have been alarmed, but I was happy. It meant that I was keeping my weight in my heels and my form was getting better.

Before bed I was telling my husband about this, and for some reason I felt the need to show him my squat. I squatting right down into malasana with good form and was able to hang out for a little bit! Fuck yeah! I was dancing and fist pumping in celebration.

Anyway, enough about that. Let’s talk about my Christmas present to myself. While reading The Awakened Ape and learning more about how much meditation helps the mind and body, I decided I needed a yoga/meditation room.

I’ve been talking about moving my yoga practice into what we call the “futon room” (it has a futon in it that my friend gave me when she moved). The foam mats I have down in the workout room aren’t the greatest for yoga because they’re too squishy. And the overhead light is assaulting whenever I’m doing prone poses. I finally found the motivation to make it happen.

While trying to decide what color to paint my yoga room, I stumbled across an article from Studio Growth. I decided on two different shades of purple because according to them:

“A yoga studio wall painted in hues of purple or violet can help restore the unity between the creative, physical, emotional, inspirational, and intellectual realities and also contribute to an air of compassion in the environment. Additionally it: 

• Restores spiritual values
• Deepens insight into activities
• Overcomes feelings of anxiety
• Integrate mind, body, and spirit

I went to Lowe’s right after my workout and bought all the painting supplies I would need along with the paint. I also got some primer because the bottom half of the walls in that room were painted black.

I’ve painted plenty walls before, so after taping everything off I dumped some of the primer into my paint pan and started rolling. The primer appeared thin and like it wasn’t sticking to the paint very well. I decided to do two coats. The stupid texture of whatever you want to call that shit made it very time consuming.

Then I looked at the can to see how long it needed to dry and discovered that I should have sanded everything before priming since I was covering up glossy paint. Good to know. Obviously I wasn’t going to spend forever sanding walls and cleaning that shit up, so fingers crossed the two coats will be good enough.

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