Yoga travelling mat

I'm writing this blog piece from a hotel restaurant in Dubai while I wait for my somewhat uninspiring dinner to arrive (pasta napolitano...the best I could find on the menu).

I have to travel quite a lot for work and to be honest it's not something I particularly relish for a number of reasons. Firstly, I'm a bit of a homebody and prefer to spend my time at home amongst creature comforts than in far flung corners of the globe (well, at least when it's for work - not so when it's for pleasure).

Also when I'm travelling I often find it difficult to eat healthily - boredom, jetlag and not cooking for yourself all conspire to kill the best of intentions with regards to diet.

And finally I don't like that my travel obligations often interrupt my yoga routine. It's pretty difficult to squeeze practice in when you spend a whole day travelling and although  you can sometimes work around it by making that particular day your rest day, it's not always possible.

It is always interesting to see what the hotel room will be like though and how conducive to practice it will be (my first question when I checked in last night - "how big is the room?")! I don't like to practice in hotel gyms with other people around as I find it distracting, so I always opt to work around whatever layout the bedroom has to offer. This can involve having to spend the first 30 minutes of my stay in a hotel completely rearranging the furniture to accommodate my mat...and wandering around the room wafting my arms about to check for 'clearance'.

I just finished a practice session wedged between the end of my bed and a floor to ceiling window - unfortunately it only overlooks a highway as otherwise it could have been quite inspirational, but alas no. It was an ok session although certain postures - such as supta padangusthasana - were completely out of the question. I also struggled for concentration a bit as a nightclub or bar in the near vicinity insisted on playing a succession of 70s funk/soul disco tunes which were nigh on impossible to ignore...but I managed to push on through and am glad now that I did so.

Despite these trials and tribulations I'll always try my best to ensure I fit some yoga practice into my work trips - even if it's not perfect, some practice is better than none after all. And as my wife quite rightly says - what better way to bring a little piece of home with me on my travels?

YB