In preparation for the long winter ahead I bought a winter weight duvet at Ikea. I am really excited to try it out tonight. I also bought a large plush gnome, just because it made me smile.
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Today I want to write about yoga. Yoga and me, we have a checkered history.
Many moons ago I attended a yoga class in the basement of a convent that’s just around the corner from me (and is now no longer a convent, THAT is how long ago I took classes there). I enjoyed it, for awhile. I liked two things about it (a) the instructor, who was great and (b) the end of the class where we just lay on our backs in corpse pose and focused on our breathing.
One of the things I remember from that class is how surprised I was when the instructor told us to relax our faces while lying on our mats like that, at the end of the class. What a crazy idea, eh? LIKE I CAN RELAX MY FACE MUSCLES. But I immediately realized that I could actually relax my face, and it felt amazing. I couldn’t believe how much tension I actually carried around in my face all day.
I also remember how hard it was to do certain things that I had thought were so easy, like sitting. Seriously, if you sat cross legged and tried to focus on every muscle being in a perfect position and in perfect alignment for many minutes in one go, you’d probably find it hard too.
I quit that class because I hurt my neck. I remember telling the instructor I wasn’t going to come anymore, and she was disappointed. (Apparently I was the class clown, which she enjoyed, although in hindsight I’m really not sure how appropriate it is to have a class clown in a class that is supposed to be silent for the most part.) I never went back there, and I didn’t attempt yoga until a couple of years ago. My work had a deal with the YMCA and my fitness pass included anything I felt like signing up for. I convinced myself that it was time to revisit yoga. I quit at the halfway mark. I quit because I really struggled, and the instructor was the kind who just did the moves at the front of the class and didn’t support newbies like myself. I worried about hurting myself again. And it hurt too much, and I worried about that too. Is yoga supposed to hurt this much? I wasn’t able to relax amid so many properly-attired bendy women, who easily folded themselves into pretzels around me. (And heaven forbid, what if I farted??) So I quit. And I hated that I quit.
It wasn’t until this year, perhaps, bolstered by the pandemic, that I revisited yoga on my own terms. It involved a total mind shift. Perhaps it isn’t yoga at all. In my version of yoga I do only the stretches that make me feel good and none of the ones that make me feel bad.
It started with a few pushups that I was doing every morning. Stretching my back in child’s pose after each set felt really good, so then I started adding other easy stretches. I eventually got out the old yoga mat and eventually added a few more poses. Suddenly I had something that looked suspiciously like a yoga routine.
My morning stretches now include:
- Cat and cow pose
- Bridge pose
- Half lord of the fishes pose
- Sphinx pose
- Easy pose
- Sleeping pigeon pose
- Downward facing dog
- Standing forward bend
- Upward salute
There’s also a pose that I simply call “lying on my face” that I do somewhere in there to give myself a breather. I’m sure I’m forgetting one or two others but I can’t think of it now. I just do them. I will never been one of those perfectly bendy people but when I’m done I feel loose and limber, and ready. There is no performance, no worry, just me, waking up my tired limbs every morning in preparation for another day. I don’t know if I’m any stronger, or fitter, or more flexible, but it sure feels good.
