20 Shades of Yoga

A good friend of mine who is also a coworker has been going to yoga three or four times a week for several months. A couple of weeks ago she was helping me stretch in the teacher's lounge. I've also been asking her about certain moves like downward dog and in a brief conversation she said I should come with her sometime. I said I had always wanted to take a yoga class so that would be fun. Here's the additional background information you need: I have several yoga videos and I pull them out from time to time. I don't do them regularly although I always want to add it in at least once a week. I know one can gain great benefits from yoga. With the exception of Hot Yoga, I thought most yoga was the same. As you will find out I was mistaken. It was decided that Monday would be the night I would join Lisa for Yoga. On Monday she told me she would pick me up and I said "The class is an hour right?" "No. It's an hour and a half on Mondays." She proceeded to tell me that part of the time would be spent on inversions and head stands. Yes, Lisa knows me. She knows I'm a klutz. However, she was not worried at all. She had far more confidence than I did about what I would be able to do. The conversation that continually came up regarding yoga was farting. These conversations started last week when people found out I was going. "Oh everyone farts in yoga." "You can't help it because of the way you are breathing and moving." Let's be clear: This was a fear for me. I'm not going to go in there as the new girl and fart. WHAT???? You need to know that by the time Lisa picked me up for class I was pretty nervous. Farting, inversions, head stands…oh wow. We walked into the warehouse where Cross Fit was taking place and Lisa introduced me to our Yogi, Ian. As we walked away Lisa told me that Ian would be very helpful to me and that he was helpful to everyone. Then we walked into this room in the warehouse that was very dimly lit. This threw me. I thought it might be lighted more like a regular workout area. There were also numerous space heaters around the perimeter which were on. It was significantly warmer in this room than the room we had come from. Well that's because we were doing Bickram Yoga and in this style of Yoga the temperature is 105 degrees with 40% humidity. It's freezing here in Kansas City so it felt good to me. People were coming in and getting set up with their mats, towels (which I forgot, but will never forget again), blocks, and straps. I was thinking….blocks? straps? I've never needed those for my yoga videos. What are we going to use blocks and straps for? There was no type to completely panic because it was time to begin. Cue the soft music. Ian has taken his sweats and sweatshirt off and is now comfortable in a tank and shorts. Oddly enough, one of the reasons I have never gone to a yoga class before is because of the bare feet. I don't like seeing other people's feet. There was an energy in the room that didn't allow me to perseverate on feet. Once we got started I was too busy trying to remember to breathe. I don't know how many times Ian had to remind me to breathe. "We breathe. We breathe. Longer breathing. Deeper breathing. Breathe In. Breathe Out. We breathe. We breathe." Readers it didn't take long at all for us to get into some moves and Ian was next to me. "Oh this is nice. He's going to make sure I don't fall." WRONG!!! He wasn't going to let me fall, but he wasn't just standing there. I would get in position and he would put his hand on my body and push me so that I would go further than what I was prepared to go. As I looked at others in the room I saw them doing this:

I have no idea how they got from where we were to that, but I stayed where I was. We went through many many moves. Now remember those heaters I mentioned? There was sweat in parts of my body that don't normally sweat. It was HOT! There were also times when Ian would say left hand on the mat right hand on your hip, raise your left leg, raise your right arm look to your right arm…and I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. Ian has a bit of an accent so that was part of it and part of it was this is a new deal that I don't have a skill set for. I became excited every time he told us to go to downward dog or up dog. I could do those two with no problem. Somehow we got into a pose that was to prepare us for the crow which is a type of inversion. I looked over and Lisa was doing it. She was doing it! I wanted to grab my phone and take a picture, but I didn't want to ruin the moment. Every person there was working on doing. Every person, except me. I played it safe and stayed where we had started. Ian offered to help me, but I politely declined.

This is a crow. From the crow, there were other inversions. Again, Ian offered to help, but I played it safe.

There were many variations. Overall, there were people who were really intent on getting their bodies to do what looked impossible to me. Finally we made it to the stretching. I love to stretch so it couldn't be too hard. Until Ian came and pushed against me to make the stretch deeper. He kept reminding me that if "you are breathing deeper, you will stretch deeper. Use the breathing to move deeper." After all of the moves, Ian placed a cold lavender eye bag on our eyes. We lay on our backs on the floor. I'm pretty sure we were supposed to be completely relaxed. I was relaxed, but my mind was going 100 miles an hour. I'm lying on a floor, in a dark room, with soft music playing, and Ian is walking around rubbing people's feet? Lisa had told me that it was really enjoyable. Seriously, I didn't want it to stop. I was prepared to beg Ian to not stop. That was BEAUTIFUL! I loved it. As we were leaving, I was ready to burst out laughing because these people seemed to be quite advanced at what they were doing. I was the uncoordinated novice. Ian had a different opinion. He told me I had done a great job. He told me I'm very flexible and I have skills. Flexibility and skills are good. Let me just say that I am sore today. My legs are sore and as the day has worn on my abs have become sore. We all know how I feel about muscle soreness. It means the metabolism is going faster. I would encourage you, given the chance to try a yoga class. However, be careful about which you choose since there are different forms of yoga. Had I not had a friend, last night would have been completely out of my comfort zone.