In all my years of gym hopping and exercising I've never actually taken a group yoga class. My experience with yoga has been quite limited. When my son was a baby I bought a box set of yoga DVDs, thinking it would help me get back into shape. The instructor was a bearded man who spoke in a lilting voice as if he'd just smoked a joint. After about ten minutes I turned the DVD off and had another cup of coffee.
My other brief fling with yoga was during a girls' weekend to Harpers Ferry WV with three of my good friends from childhood. One of them was training to become a yoga instructor and offered to take us through some yoga poses. Unfortunately there was no good place for us to do this so we ended up at the end of the hallway in our hotel, bending and twisting and sticking our butts up in the air. Every now and then someone would open the door from the stairwell and step around us, eyeing us suspiciously as they made their way down the hall. We were laughing too hard to really get the full effect of yoga.
Today I finally tried a yoga class. I read an article about why runners need yoga and decided that if I want to take running seriously and reduce my risk for injury, I'd better try it.
Yoga may not seem like it would cause you to break into a sweat, but it can. The class I tried was called Vinyasa Yoga - in which you move through a variety of poses in a fluid manner. Some of the poses were easy, but some of them were hard. I have never been flexible and still have nightmares about P.E. class in elementary school, where we had to sit on the floor, stretch our legs into a V and touch our toes. All the other girls in my class seemed to have no trouble doing this except for me. During class today we were told to do this same stretch and again I cringed as I assumed the position. The instructor came up behind me and tried to help me but soon realized that I was structurally challenged.
The best part was the end, during which the instructor told us to assume a relaxation pose - it could be anything we wanted. I opted for lying flat on my back, arms at my side. Then she said: "Let your mind be free. No second guessing the past, no planning for the future. Be here in the moment."
As soon as she said that I realized that I'd already been thinking about what was next on my agenda for the day. Here I was in my relaxation pose thinking about what was coming next. I forced those thoughts out of my head and tried to clear my mind. It wasn't easy. The pull to focus on the day's tasks is strong.
I walked out of the class feeling refreshed, relaxed and just little bit taller. Namaste.
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