First Class Back, Heated Vinyasa

I just took my first class since returning from training with Tony Sanchez. It was not my first time practicing since training, but my first time in a yoga studio with a teacher and other students. It was a heated class that uses vinyasa postures and roughly follows the Ghosh sequencing. 

I have had trouble with this class in the past. The heat usually gets to me, way more than it does in Bikram. But today the class had only 10 students, so the heat wasn't a problem. 

The biggest challenge was a mental one. How much do I follow the teacher's cueing versus how much do I follow the cues of my own body and practice? There were a lot of cues to lock the knee, engage the muscles and push harder, and I tried my best to let those go. I tried to stay relaxed, to listen to my body and breathe calmly. 

It was interesting too to be in the heat after 2 full weeks without it. My muscles were WAY more flexible. In postures where I usually come up against muscle tightness, there was none. Many aches and sorenesses were gone too. After becoming so familiar with what my body feels like and working into it gradually at room temperature, the heat scared me a little bit. I could stretch significantly further if I were to push myself, and I can see how I could strain a muscle or connective tissue. So I used as much restraint as I could to not push into the postures too hard, to come into the posture, engage properly and breathe.