Saturday, March 17, 2012

Go To Yoga




I used to say I couldn’t do yoga. I used to say I hated yoga. Yoga made me scream.

Then last winter break I broke. Every morning I woke up feeling worse. Maybe I just needed rest. I spent three days in bed. My back and bones felt brittle and frail. It hurt to sit, stand, lie down and run. Walking felt okay. I walked for hours. My feelings were hurt too. Life was too much. I felt like walking for four hours a day and then sleeping the rest of it away.

Go to yoga, said my friends, two of whom are beautiful yoga teachers and who knew what they were talking about as they watched me hobble around in misery.

Finally in January I visited my friend Laura who whispered, go to yoga. So I did.

Here’s the thing with yoga and me: I thought I was a hyperactive person and that holding poses for more than a second would make me die. I thought I was an old person and that I wouldn’t be able to do anything. I thought yoga would not be enough. I thought I needed long runs to burn off all of my extra body fat. I thought I thought I thought.

During my first yoga class in January, the best I could do was child’s pose and sitting up, and that barely. But I came home feeling better.

Yoga effect, my eight year old daughter said. She noticed right away.

I’m three months into a practice. It’s surprising what I can and cannot do. Half moon was impossible today, but next thing you know my hands were folded behind my back like it was nothing. My Boat Pose is whack but Wheel is okay.

My body knows things I don’t know yet. Every practice is a new opportunity to learn what rests deep.

It’s changed everything.

Go to yoga.

1 comment:

  1. This is wonderful. I love the thought of allowing our bodies to teach us what we don't know yet. I'm sure you feel that way with dance also. Cosmic.

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