Yoga

I mentioned yesterday that I’d recently started the practice of yoga.  I really don’t know why it took me so long to get started on the practice of yoga.  That questioning outlook on my apparent procrastination is particularly relevant when I start to consider the number of positive things that I’ve learned over the last six months since starting the practice.  A 2012 study indicated that somewhere between eight and twelve percent of the population practices yoga on a consistent basis. If you’re part of that lucky or far sighted minority. If you haven’t yet pulled the trigger and given yoga a try, I recommend you consider the opportunity.  

Without further ado, here are some things I’ve learned over the last six months while practicing yoga.

1. Even on a “bad” day of yoga practice, I manage to learn something or accomplish something that I didn’t really know I could accomplish.  This happened today. I don’t know what was going on, but my back was sore and my whole body was tired today when I showed up for my AllVibez yoga class.  I could go into the details, but you don’t want to hear about my whole body stiffness, epic sweating, or any of my other complaints. Suffice it to say, I was not feeling it.  This happens from time to time, and the yoga teachers will tell you just to listen to your body and deal with what shows up for you. I wanted to quit and go home about half way through the one hour class.  Unfortunately for me, I was deep into the room away from the exit, and there was no real way to extricate myself from the class without causing a ruckus. Toward the end of the class, we finally got to the bridge and wheel pose sequences.  To date, I’ve only been able to get myself into the bridge pose. I was having such a miserable time of it, that I decided that I had nothing to lose and would try to lever my upper body up into the elusive wheel pose. Much to my surprise, I was able to lift myself onto the crown of my head and from there straighten my arms and resolve into wheel for the very first time.  I like to think it looked a little like this, although I’m sure it was not as graceful.

This is not me...I'm pretty sure I looked more awkward than this person.

The moral of the story is that even though I was having a “bad” yoga session, I was able to stick with what showed up.  What showed up for me was progress.

2.  The strength and flexibility benefits of yoga are well documented, and I’m not going to waste a whole lot of your time describing them.  I will say this. I turned forty five years old last week. I thought the type of strength and flexibility that I’ve been able to see develop with a disciplined and consistent yoga practice over the last six months were a thing of the past for me.  I’m not going to say it’s the fountain of youth, but the practice has certainly started to slowly reverse the consequences of some very poor health choices that I made in my thirties. Again, I wish I’d started this twenty years ago. It’s a hell of a lot easier to keep your health than to try to get it back at a later date.

3.  This is for the guys out there.  As a caucasian male, I’ve never really had to deal with the visceral feelings of what it’s like to be a minority until I started yoga.  Those same studies referenced earlier indicate that of the Americans who practice yoga, only eighteen to twenty five percent of them are men.  I can tell you that my anecdotal evidence indicates that this is probably still about right. If you’re a male going to a yoga class, you can expect that there will be between three and six women practicing for every man practicing in the class.  The other thing you can be fairly certain about is that most of the women are going to more skilled, more flexible, better balanced, and not nearly as funny looking as you’re going to be when you first start. In other words, you’re not only going to be an obvious minority, but you’re going to be in a room where almost everyone is better at yoga than you.  They are likely to be skeptical of your motives as well. This is a humbling experience, and is one of the greatest lessons that participating in the practice has taught me. You are going to have to get over yourself to survive and keep going in this environment. Don’t believe me. Just wait until you’re rolling up from your back through your knees into tabletop and you rip a loud fart.  You’re going to want to melt into your mat and disappear. It’s at this moment you’re going to have to decide whether to get over yourself and keep going so you can learn something or take your fragile ego and hide away in a place where you’re comfortable. I chose to stay, and the benefits have far outweighed the cost.

That’s enough about yoga for now.  If you haven’t given the practice a chance, I highly recommend giving it a shot.  I’ll always view the yoga practice I stumbled upon as part of my training for the N2N-TCP as one of the great physical, intellectual, and spiritual challenges that I’ve faced along this journey.  It’s quite a bit of fun once you start developing some of your own flexibility as well.