70 degrees is warm for an English summer morning, blistering warm when the rest of the year barely sneaks out of the 60s with its sporadic rain, blinding mist, and a wind that has you chasing your own umbrella. The sun was brightening on this rare day which made the greens feel like they had a warmth of their own. As I walked through what would be the most quintessential British city with its cobbled streets and endless pubs, I found it hard to believe I was about to go practice yoga in a small park in front of anyone. I had just begun dating a very classy but daring American whom I crushed on for a year and was fully prepared to embarrass myself to spend time with her. I had been practicing what I considered a yoga-ish style of stretching for years that was motivated routinely by some new full-body stretching video that surfaced on YouTube. I thought that level of stretching was enough when all I wanted to do was look like I could pick up a small car. Oh, this yoga-ish style set me up to look like I desired but somehow couldn’t obtain flexibility which really made me shine as I couldn’t touch my own toes. The yoga instructor created a gradual flow through all the poses that seemed like it was one endless movement while my body clicked and popped as it struggled to even complete some of the most basic poses. I saw my girlfriend look over at me with her teasing smile and I like to think that this was the moment when she fell in love with me as she saw my pink face glistening in the sun attempting something called a cobra pose. At the end of the session, everyone laid on their mats looking up at the sky with the glow of the sun covering them and my body felt uniquely good as I just stretched muscles that I hadn't taken care of in years. I came to believe that I was alright with embarrassing myself to get that level of relief, improve my flexibility, build core strength, and spend time with the woman that would be my future wife.
I have found that yoga is much more than just stretching. It incorporates breath work, poses, and its own positive mentality that creates flexibility, reduces stress, builds strength, and improves your mental state. I don’t know anyone that has tried it and couldn’t see how it could enhance their life with its varied interpretations that could just about suit anyone. Hungover and wanting to cleanse your body, hot yoga will teach you a lesson while you sweat away the night before. Think you have mastered the basics, try vinyasa to test your core strength and push your own limits as you are forced into positions that almost look unnatural. Want to relax and recuperate, try restorative yoga with its slow pace and long stretches that make your body feel at ease while you are lulled into a calming sense of harmony. Whatever you want, yoga could give you it if given the chance. I caveat this by saying that if you want to be so jacked you can't even scratch your own back, yoga is not going to give you that. For me, I want relief from the pain caused by the ruptured discs in my lower back. Despite not resolving the pain, yoga at least steadied the pain level in my lower back while further reducing the likelihood of injury in other areas of my body. Further, I came to realize that the stretches used in my physical therapy sessions to help me recover from my back injury were almost identical to the poses used routinely in the yoga I was practicing. This realization to me justified that I was on the right path with injury prevention and recovery through the use of yoga and not something yoga-ish. I also wanted to be able to touch my own toes…still trying.
Yoga will never be the sole form of physical fitness that I do but I like to incorporate it at least three times a week into my daily routine especially as I am in my early 30s. After attending a few classes in person while in the back of the classroom so no one else could see how inflexible I truly was, I do like to do yoga in the peace of my own home to the instruction of a YouTuber named Breathe and Flow. His solid level of instruction is paired with perfectly timed yoga sessions that fit into my day without wasting any time driving to or stopping at a yoga studio. If you want more variety, Yoga with Adrienne is also a solid YouTube channel that provides a wide array of yoga sessions. Even with YouTube, if you want yoga to be your primary form of exercise I highly recommend joining a studio and becoming part of a massively welcoming community. I found this not to be for me but I will always remember that day in the park when a yoga instructor did the exact sequence of poses that made my wife fall in love with me.
Namaste de the rising.
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