I am a passionate person.  I’m quick to judge; if I take a shine to you, then you are part of my family and privy to all kinds of unsolicited advice.  If I don’t, I will quietly plot your downfall (don’t worry, I like all y’all).  I can be enthusiastic to the point of maddening those around me.  If I fall in love with a new activity I will talk about it constantly, recommend it and otherwise drive my fellows bonkers in my desire to bring them into the fold.  This is what happened with yoga.

I started going to yoga at Alternative Health Group (AHG) in Wicker Park (Chicago) about a year ago.  I had always looked skeptically on yoga as a bunch of new-agey hooey.  Contempt prior to investigation is my modus operandi.  But, a good friend wanted to try it and I will do most anything for a friend.  Off we went, knowing little and anticipating the worst (read: a room full of skinny, bendy yoga-types smirking at my pasty inflexible self).

Here is a run down of my thoughts prior to my first yoga class and what I have learned:

“I am the stiffest person alive.  I’m not going to be able to do anything.  Yoga is for flexible people.” Unless you have been doing yoga all your life, are a dancer, or exist part time as a human pretzel, then you are like the majority of people.  We sit too much.  We stretch too little.  We left our bendy, flexible days behind us along with our twenties.  Luckily, the point of yoga is not to begin able to do everything, but rather to gradually increase strength and flexibility over time.  My best example is this: when I first started I couldn’t even touch my hands to my feet.  I reached about mid calf.  Now, by the end of class, I can bend over and place my palms flat on the floor.  That took a year.

“I won’t know what I’m doing.  I’m going to make a fool out of myself and fall on my face.” I didn’t know what I was doing, but my teachers are marvels of patience and guidance.  I believe that is the most important piece beyond willingness to try: a great teacher.  I will attempt poses that Tim and Rhiannon suggest simply because they are so nice about it.  I feel badly giving up.  With encouragement like, “Be in your body,” and “do what you can and no more,” it becomes ok to both know your limits in the moment and stretch them where you can.

I did, indeed, fall on my face…once.  I was attempting crow for the first time.  I over balanced and face met mat.  However, much like The Matrix jump program, everyone falls the first time they try crow.  It doesn’t mean anything.

“I’m a runner. I don’t really need to do anything else to be fit.” I have gained remarkable strength from yoga.  Strength I did not know I lacked, in fact.  For women especially, the upper body strength that comes from regular yoga practice is worth every sore muscle.  All of this is done with little impact on the joints something which any runner focuses on with laser-like intensity.  Plus, now if I take a funny step, I bend.  I don’t break.  I don’t jump up like six year old that has taken a tumble, but neither am I sidelined with a major sprain.

“Isn’t it all just breathing and holding poses?  I’m going to be bored.” One of the most wonderful things for me about yoga is that the intensity of the practice forces all other thoughts right out of my brain.  I am concentrating on breathing rather than panting and, at times, simply not falling over.  There is little room left for idle thoughts about shopping lists or papers due.  For this overthinker, it is a welcome relief from the circuitous pathways of my mind.

Here I am a year after beginning a yoga practice and a total convert, an “out and out born-again from none more cynical.” Why do I keep going?  Why do I continue to pimp AHG like they’re paying me per newbie shanghaied?  Like my running obsession before it, yoga feeds my soul.  I know, I know.  I can feel you snickering out in the blogosphere.  Corny as it sounds, it is also true.  Yoga is at the same time challenging and soothing, centering and energizing.  I leave class refreshed and relaxed, and I want to share that experience with other.  Mostly, though, it makes me a happy monkey.

Namaste.