If I had a nickel for every time someone gave me inflexibility as an excuse for not trying yoga – ok, I’d only have about $10, but you get the point. How do you expect to gain flexibility without working at your flexibility?!!
Starting Out
I started yoga when I was in my early 30’s. I was never really an athlete, I mean I had a few natural abilities but nothing that I really excelled at, and I was told my whole life that I ‘run like a girl’. I tried all sorts of sports growing up and never found anything I really loved or felt like I was good at. In my twenties, I did the gym thing (poorly), but I did ride my bike on weekends at the beach and rollerbladed all of the time. Fast forward, two kids later and feeling completely lost in motherhood and marriage, I found myself in my first yoga class.
The First Class
This first yoga class was a Bikram style; hot and hard AF! It was a 90-minute class, I had no clue what I was doing and I kept looking around thinking, ‘what the hell is this and how or why do these people do it’?? By the end of class, I was a puddle of sweat, exhausted but also filled with wonderment and awe. I cried in savasana (it wouldn’t be the last time) and knew without a shadow of a doubt, that I would be back.
Why Yoga?
Why do I share my first yoga class story with you? I think It is important to know that people seek out and find yoga for a variety of reasons. They want to work on flexibility, strength, their doctor said it would be a good idea, weight loss, emotional trauma, they lost a bet, they heard pretty girls would be there, the yoga teacher is a friend, someone bought them a gift card, and the list goes on. What I have found after a decade and a half of meeting people through yoga is that regardless of why we started, the benefits are all the same.Through yoga we find community and through that support we find ourselves. Beyond the physical benefits of the asana practice, students and friends from all backgrounds have expressed better habits (eating, sleeping, lifestyle), better temperament, patience, thoughtfulness, confidence to make life-changing decisions (change career, relationship status), and the list goes on here as well.
GO!
My advice, go take a yoga class! At the Y, your church, a studio, or find one on youtube and try it out at home. If you don’t resonate with the first style, teacher or forum, then try again. The only rule you must follow is to breathe, and with the breath, you will find peace. Don’t worry about what you look like, just have faith in how it will make you feel. Namaste roughly translates to “I honor the light inside of you, and when you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are one.”
Dorie