F*@#!

 Yes.  That's exactly the right word to summarize video number two: "F*@#!"
That is essentially all I muttered under my breath, especially once minute 40 arrived...when I began screaming it.  There were other variations of it as well.  Sometimes there was a vehement "What the..." before it.  Other times, I blessed it by placing a  "Holy..." in front of it.  Most of the time I just repeated it over and over.

The beginning of the video takes you through some awesome sun salutations that result in a glorious sweat.  I didn't think I worked too hard yesterday but I could already feel some teeny cries from my muscles as I stretched like a happy puppy in downward dog.

Video numero two is called World Champion's Hips.  Eoin makes reference to elite athletes training for the Winter Olympics we just hosted in Vancouver (what what!).  He also stresses the importance of an excellently trained core.  I should have known what was coming.... death by yoga.

Okay, okay, it wasn't that bad.  It was actually awesome and will give me a goal to work towards by the end of the month (like I don't have enough goals already!).  In this video, Eoin has us doing boat poses that he not only has us hold for a while, but then has us alternate lowering one leg at a time while the other one stays high in the air.  From here we go back into a full boat pose, then release and lay our legs down flat in front of us, and we sit up with our back straight.  This is the point where I thought we were done.  We weren't.

So we did all that boat stuff, and then he has us lift our bums off the ground by supporting all our weight in our arms.  Our legs then come up off  from the ground too.  Well that was the intention.  My version of this looked very different from what Eoin and crew were doing... but I did my best.  It's almost a shame there isn't any video footage of my attempt at this because it would involve a lot of breathy cursing, some intense shaking of my core and inner thighs, (and I mean INTENSE) and finally me on the floor laughing at how I failed horribly at making any of that look somewhat graceful.

Here is a picture of another lemon that can do boat pose quite gracefully:

There were other poses we did in this video that resulted in a bit of cursing and disbelief... but I don't think I could describe them eloquently enough to do them justice.  So I will save those for another post.

No matter what you're doing in life, you always have to start somewhere and the important thing is that you just start and not take anything too personally.  After doing World Champion's Hips, I realized that the next time I do it, I will likely dread minute 40, and all the other minutes that follow until savasana rolls around.  Ahh savasana.  This would be an unfortunate mistake on my part though.  Part of the lululemon manifesto is: "Do one thing a day that scares you."  I really like this and try to make it my mantra in life because it's so true.  If all you do in life are the things that are easy for you to do, things that don't instill any kind of butterflies in your stomach, and don't create any sort of anticipatory anxiety in you, then what exactly are you learning from life?  Boat pose officially scares me so I will be sure to stare it fiercely in the eye the next time I encounter it and do my darndest to find peace in that pose.  Hopefully, come June 30th, I can post some pictures of me doing it gracefully!

In somewhat unrelated news:  Best Health Magazine published an article rating the Best Reusable Water Bottles. 
I was happy to see that our Lululemon Simply Stainless was very high on that list! 
I am a proud owner of one of those bad boys myself, as I personally have a bit of a water bottle obsession.  Here's a link to the online version of that article if you're interested!