Sun salutations are associated with the Manipura chakra. A sun salutation means starting in tadasana (standing/mountain pose), doing a vinyasa (downward dog - plank - chataranga (push-up) - upward dog - downward dog) and then lunging forward with your right leg (back-leg down to the floor) lifting your arms up to the ceiling, going back to a vinyasa and then repeating with your left leg, and coming back to standing. See the image below. That whole series is one sun salutation.
108 is thought to be a sacred number for many reasons (discussed here if you're interested) that deal with religion, astronomy, and math. Many people recite chants 108 times and prayer bead necklaces (malas) have 108 beads.
We came in for meditation and then did our regular 9:30-11 class. I was worried about tiring out my muscles, but no on else seemed to be! Pretzel told us to eat VERY light and come back when we would begin. When we returned we set our mats up in a circle all facing inward. Pretzel told us we would do 2 sets of 54 and would have a 2-3 minute break in between. She would tell us every 10 or so what the count was and remind us to breathe. She told us that right around 70 or so, it would start to "get really good."
And so we began. At first I tried to just focus on my breathing and the movements. Right leg up, right leg down, left leg up, left leg down. When she called out 10, I thought okay, this isn't so bad. When she called out 20, I thought "how could that only be 20??"
As we continued, I started to lose myself in the music that was playing. I couldn't tell you what the music was but I saw my movements as being super fluid and almost moving with the music. I stopped thinking at some point about left and right and up and down and just saw and felt my body moving. At some point with the repetition, it just knew what to do and there were no thoughts - just movement and breath.
When we reached 54, we had some water, took some deep breaths, and got back into position. When we restarted, I felt like the break had made it more difficult to keep going. I worried that I lost a bit of my flow. Then Pretzel said she had miscounted and we had actually only done 44 when we had our break. This was a bit of a mental setback for me. At this point, each one felt difficult.
As I felt myself starting to struggle, I had the thought that I had been through much greater struggles than this. I suddenly viewed all of this as so fleeting - the difficulty, the tiredness, the soreness that would follow. Having experienced emotional pain that is so enduring, I was struck by how short-lived this difficulty was going to be. I felt strong - and wanted to be strong for my nephews, and my sister, my husband, brother-in-law, family & friends that helped me through hard times. This relaxed me and helped me focus on the fleeting nature of what we were doing. I was able to get back into my "feeling mind" and out of my "thinking mind."
(There could be a lesson in there that all pain is fleeting. I don't necessarily believe that, but I do believe in putting struggles in perspective.)
When we got to 108, we were all ready to collapse! But it really did feel like we made it through something big together. Pretzel was right (no surprise) - right around 70, it did "get good."
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