My Yoga Journey

Fitness is such a personal journey, and sometimes those journeys are slow and easy in unfolding. It doesn’t always have to be complicated and it doesn’t always have to fit in a box.

My relationship with yoga? It’s NOT complicated.  It continues to naturally unfold.  My practice changes as my life does, with pregnancy and post partum,  marathons and Ironman, nursing babies and raising little ones.  As life and it’s parameters shift, I still find my way to my yoga mat.  It’s not complicated.  There are no strings attached or rigid boxes to fit in.  It’s just good. 

For me, yoga has been a series of small opportunities, forks in the road and little decisions that have turned into a valuable part of my health. I think that one of the main reasons that it’s worked for me is because I began with baby steps, I didn’t overthink it, and I didn’t try to twist and bend unnaturally, trying to shove my life (or my body!) into what it should look like. I let it come easily.

I’m somewhat of a closet yogi. Well, not closet so much as someone who practices alone at home, and under the radar almost always. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not afraid to mention yoga or give it the credit that is due for keeping me healthy. But my life doesn’t fit into the yoga mold exactly. You won’t hear me “om”, I sometimes skip shavasana (I know, “the most important pose!”), I don’t own a piece of Lululemon, and I haven’t stepped in a studio in years. But it’s still something that I consider extremely important to my well being. I don’t need it for my spirituality or use it religiously in that sense. Though it can be quite centering and reaffirming, it’s not my church. I love the movement as well as the rest and surrender. I’ve taken the parts that fit the framework of my life and I’ve worked them in. I’m no yoga purist (and I’m only a little sorry if that offends you!)

I “practice” several times a week, on average. My routines are streamlined, often falling in the 15-20 minute range, and about once a week I manage 30 minutes or more. I roll out my mat early morning most often, and sometimes with the kids roaming around me, joining in for a pose or two. I love that it’s a movement and exercise that I can do right near my family. There’s a cozy sense of well being that comes from having practiced in my own home. I often feel like I’ve been to a massage or taken a trip to the chiropractor after I’m done.

While it’s not my main love (running and cardio are), it’s been there for me through pregnancy and post-partum recovery, Ironmans, marathons, and the strains of daily life. It has been an intregal part of my health and fitness for the last fifteen years or so.

As I look back , I think that it all started with a random show on a random channel at a random time, that fit into my schedule. It was a thirty minute block of tv time (which means it was even less in actuality) which was broken into three segments- a warm up, a longer main set, and then a cool down. It was calming and stretching (obviously). This was all happening around 2003 and 2004, around that time that I started running longer distances. The yoga show was a perfect and important compliment to my more grueling running journey. I needed the stretching more, but until that show, was finding less time to do it. Which is all kind of funny, because if I look back a few years before that, I literally started my adult fitness journey stretching.

When I joined the gym for the first time as a post-college, working adult two years before, I would dabble in cardio for a random amount of time and then head to the mats to stretch. It was my safe place. I knew what to do there. My time in high school sports (sitting the bench in soccer and a more successful cheerleading career) had taught me that much. So I kept defaulting to the stretching mats when the whole gym was daunting. In fact, I actually, honest to the good Lord, met my husband on those mats. As in, we actually started talking from across the row of mats, then shook hands and properly met as he walked past to leave. (Later we’d upgrade our talks over to the ab machine. By the time we went on our first date eight or nine months later, my abs were in the best shape of my life. But I digress.) So, clearly, stretching is so important!

Those early gym days I stretched and did my cardio, and then started doing Pilates every week, plus that ab machine to talk to that cute guy, and some weights. Then, as life changes, so does your fitness journey. I started running (a whole different story) and it was some time later that I found that yoga on tv. That show became a tiny key that opened the door to a slowly unfolding yoga journey.

That short practice at home and alone gave me the confidence to eventually go to a real live yoga class. I don’t remember exactly how, where, or why (though I vaguely think it was maybe for a fundraiser or to help a friend). But I know that I fell in love. I dropped Pilates like a hot potato. I’d found my true stretching and strengthening home.

I slowly started upping my game, switching from those tv yoga sessions to buying a DVD that I could do at home. There was one Crunch Fitness Dvd that I had during my college years that I did over and over. When I found that the instructor who I liked, Sara Ivanhoe, had a yoga video too, it was an easy transition. Now I did those two yoga classes on repeat. Later I purchased another series from her website.

Eventually I began going to classes at the gym. I visited different venues, including a less- than-loved experience at a Bikrham style class. (The hot, challenging style of the class was fine with me; the thought of repeating the same sequence every time at a high cost was less than desirable. Though I wasn’t opposed to repeating routines at home, an overly structured class was a different story.) Over the years I was able to practice yoga in a variety of places from a beach in the Aruba, various studios around town, trips in the states, and a most loved shaded outdoor practice in Mexico, where the breeze was blowing just right and the exotic birds around us created an impressive, surreal experience for the senses. Yoga slowly became a second love to running.

There was even a time that I went pretty regularly to a yoga studio. It that had a large rooted tree painted on the wall. The instructor was thorough and impressive, yet likeable. Firm, but never cross. I called her the Mary Poppins of yoga (there that Mary Poppins again!) and I had followed her from the Y, to classes in her home, and then to her studio. I didn’t go every week and certainly not multiple times a week, but I went regularly enough to go know the people, to go out for drinks with the instructor and other students. I loved the challenge of strength and the reset for my muscles. When I started doing more distance triathlon, I couldn’t always make it to the studio anymore. It was further away from home, I was working 50 hours a week, and I was trying to see my husband occasionally.

So again, life shifted and so did my routines. For the next several years it was a Monday night yoga class at our local YMCA. Closer, quicker, and still steady enough to do a world of good. I would rush to get there on time, do a quick change, and come to the mat, breathing quickly from the effort just to come and relax. It was a welcomed hour to recover, rest and reset the muscles after a weekend of long training rides and runs.

When I couldn’t make it to my class or needed a extra stretch, I had one video downloaded on my phone from ExcerciseTV that I would watch on repeat. (I just googled it and you can still find it online! I’ll include all the links to my tools below). It was twenty minutes and I did it so many times that I could repeat the instructors words by heart.

Monday night yoga class lasted until I became pregnant with our first baby. I wasn’t really comfortable trying to figure out what was okay to do, so I decided that it wasn’t worth the worry or work to continue practicing in a regular class. From then on out, I switched to prenatal yoga videos, which progressed through the trimesters. They started out simple and excruciating easy and then became something that sometimes was about all I could handle.

I googled prenatal videos when traveling to Antigua on our baby moon, and this began my yoga experience 3.0. The world of google brought me so much possibility, and even more importantly, so much flexibility to fit it into my schedule. I love doing yoga from the internet because I get to pick the length of the workout, I can pause and hold the pose for as long as I want, finish early if I need to, or start another video if I want. It’s so accessible and flexible

It was after the birth of my second baby I found my current favorite, Sarahbeth yoga. I was googling postnatal yoga when I found her. There was no going back. I now have her open in browser tabs on my phone and my tablet. I’m subscribed to her YouTube channel, I get her emails in my inbox. She has an app, which I just discovered and am checking out. She also has an annual membership that is loaded with more content. I’ve never tried it, but having done so many of Sarabeth’s routines over the years, I’m sure that it’s fantastic. If I did want to upgrade, that’s where I’d put my money.

My yoga journey will probably continue to evolve. Maybe I’ll return to a class someday. I did go to one class at a gym after having my daughter, and while it felt great to be in a dimly lit, open space, (just thinking about it now sounds delightful!), I really didn’t find it worth the time or effort to juggle going to a class and figuring out schedules and childcare. I still feel the same for the most part, especially when I could do it from home with great results.

So I guess I share all of this to say that you don’t have to be “all or nothing”. You can take the pieces that you love about fitness and make your own beautiful, evolving puzzle. And sometimes healthy habits are formed slowly, incrementally over time. They don’t always have to be big monumental decisions or turning points. They can be small motions forward on a greater fitness journey. Wherever you are today, congratulations for being there. Whatever thing you’re finding that you love- yoga or swimming or Zumba- you can find a way to fit it into your life if you want to. And have fun figuring out the next pieces, even if they don’t fit in the box.

Namaste, kind of 💕.

Resources:

• ExcerciseTV Zen In Your Den https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3qyKsrYvBo

• Sarah Ivanhoe 2 yoga workout DVD https://www.amazon.com/Crunch-Perfect-Yoga-Workout-Fat-Burning/dp/B00005NQGR

• SarahBethYoga by SarahBethYoga yoga channel (you can find links to her app here too) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-0CzRZeML8zw4pFTVDq65Q