Look Mom! I Have Muscles I Never Knew Were Supposed to Be There!

Clothes for Confidence

My yoga clothes are the same clothes that I wear when I often go rock climbing.  They’re a little battered by being scraped along rock faces, but they’re clothes that always make me feel powerful and strong.  (We need more clothes like this in our closest by the way).  I was nervous to try out yoga, but I put on those clothes to give me the extra motivation.

I realized as I waited to enter the yoga studio, that everyone else there was fairly new, and fairly nervous about the same things as me.  And that I was capable of trying this out, and if I didn’t like it, then I wouldn’t likely see any of those strangers again, so who cares!?

So yes, I did yoga last night (It’s likely my fifth yoga class in my life- and the first time since I started this blog.) And I really really liked it.

I’m A Yoga Cynic

Honestly, yoga seems like this huge fad- I equate it with beautiful women who are all wrapped up in “feeling one with the earth” and all that jazz.  So I’ve been a bit of a yoga cynic.  I only wanted to do this yoga thing because I’m so tired of my aching back and neck.

But you know what?  When you open your mind, and ignore all the lululemon-clad gorgeous women (yes, they were there!), yoga is really rather fantastic. (Did I really just say that!?)

It’s All About Me

I liked that it focuses so much on yourself. It’s about how you are today.  Rock climbing has taught me the same humbling lesson: Some days, I can climb 5.11s and make it look easy, while other days I struggle and whimper my way up the rock as if I never climbed before.  I found that yoga is definitely humbling for me, despite the fact that I think climbing has made me fairly strong and flexible!  There are some poses that I seem to be able to do but there are some that are definitely difficult or currently impossible.  So I’ve realized that my body has FAR more muscles in it than I was aware of, and that I am FAR less flexible than I had previously believed.

And you know what’s so good about that?  Is that in a yoga class, they seem to say that it’s all ok to be at where you are that day.  Maybe I can’t bend over and put my palms on the ground. That’s ok.  Maybe I can’t stay up in a pushup as long as I thought. That’s ok.  Maybe I lose my balance a little.  That’s ok too.

There are far too few times in our world when we’re encouraged to hold ourselves with such loving acceptance.   So I’m ok with having found muscles that don’t know really how to do what they’re made to do.  Especially since I plan on checking in with them more often, and figuring out how to build them up. 

I Can’t Wait to Return!?

I felt so energized and grounded after yoga that I couldn’t wait to do it again. I’m going back on Thursday…maybe even meeting a friend today or tomorrow to get a little yoga in via DVD.

And in terms of my neck and back- I’ve found some muscles there that are so tight and some that are so under-used, that it seems that this yoga thing might just be what my body needs.  We’ll see how this goes!

(and on another note, I just want to put out a special thanks to my body for remembering how to digest food and overcome illness so that I could feel well enough to do yoga this week!)