1 Year Old Yogi
February 1st, 2010, late in the eveningI’ll just get it out of the way: no, I couldn’t touch my toes when I started. (It seems that’s how most every “how I got into yoga” story starts.)
My parents exposed me to yoga in my youth, but as with most every bit of Indian culture they tried to teach me, I didn’t pay it much attention.
Fast forward 25 years later, and after a year of swimming, bicycling, and running, I finally decided to give yoga a try. And by “decided, ” I mean it took 6 months of pestering by my workout buddy (who was training to be yoga teacher) and the lure of a free pass. Luckily, my buddy was a fan of Ashtanga yoga, and that intensely rigorous style of yoga appealed to me from the first class.
So I took a break from the traditional western exercises and dove head first into yoga.
A year later, my only regret is that I didn’t pay more attention when I was a kid.
The blessing, and curse, of yoga is how progress is so slow to come by. Especially when you start at 35 and discover you have a shoulder that needs to be surgically repaired. It has taught me more about patience than I ever wanted to learn. It has opened me to spirituality (another ignored concept from my youth). It has taught me to follow my breath, and it has introduced me to the worthy goal of stilling my mind.
And maybe best of all, it’s introduced me to some great friends.
The thing I like best about yoga is its accessibility. If you asked me a year ago to name a physical activity I could equally enjoy with my mom and my daughter, I would’ve been at a little bit of a loss. Some of my most fun memories of the past year are taking a yoga class with my mom and doing yoga at home with my little girl.
So after a year, I’m still struggling with yoga’s edicts to slow down and focus, and I’m nowhere close to do most of the postures the way they are “supposed” to be done.
…but I can touch my toes.
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