Ok, so let's talk about Awesome Day Thirteen--otherwise known as The Day I Committed To Doing Yoga Again.
Otherwise known as Ouch.
You guys, I used to do yoga four times a week. Sometimes five. I used to flow like the best of them. I could balance and handstand and stretch and flex. I would do yoga when I woke up and before I went to bed. I rarely had aches or pains or tight muscles (I was also five years younger, so that might have helped too).
This is all coming from someone who had never done a forward bend to touch her toes until I was a freshman in college. I was not flexible growing up. I wasn't even athletic. I had a brief stint in gymnastics until my mom withdrew me from the program without even telling me one year. I can't blame her; there probably wasn't much hope.
So all this yoga stuff was really an accomplishment. I was proud of it.
Then, somewhere along the way, I just kinda stopped. It takes commitment and money and time and discipline to practice yoga, and I guess I just decided I didn't have all of those things so much anymore. My muscles slowly got tighter and tighter and my back started to hurt in places it hadn't in years. I found myself repeatedly uttering the words "I need to go to yoga..." without ever acting on them.
All in all, it had been roughly a year and a half since I had stepped foot in a yoga class; the last class I can remember participating in was in Ubud, Bali at the Yoga Barn (that place is rad, if you're ever in Bali) in February 2012. Embarrassing.
And then, as I'm sure you can imagine, after not going to yoga in a year, it just sounds...hard. After so long, I knew it was going to be frustrating, and honestly, I just didn't want to face it. It was much less daunting to head over to the gym and mentally check out while grinding away on the elliptical and watching TMZ. But my body was hurting for a challenge, my mind missed the opportunity to be present and calm, and I began to seriously miss those toned arms and hamstrings.
So on Awesome Day Thirteen, I committed to yoga. (And lucky for me, I have a pretty Awesome boyfriend that was equally missing the yoga life. Awesome is just so much more fun with a partner in crime.)
There's a yoga studio down the street from me in Silver Lake that offers $5 yoga classes a few times a day (ridiculously cheap for yoga in LA--dear God it can get expensive here). It was a gorgeous, sunny day, so we took the opportunity to enjoy the 30 minute graffiti-filled walk to the studio. Probably best to get the blood moving at least a little before throwing ourselves into the hour long reintroduction to flexibility and chaturanga, we thought.
(The walk took us right by my favorite sign in all of Los Angeles. Advertising a foot clinic, it spins between a sad foot and a happy foot. You know the one. It was happy when we passed by it today; it was going to be a good day.)
We walked fast too, because I was set on getting there early. No way was I going to get stuck in the front of the class today. I know they say yoga is not competitive, but you know people are looking, especially in LA. Everyone looks at everyone all the time in LA. Plus my shorts were scandalously short for any kind of bending in front of an audience. Best to have the wall behind me on all counts.
The hour was Awesome. Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. And painful. It was like seeing an old boyfriend after a break-up long ago and realizing you're still madly in love.
Oh yoga, why did I ever leave you?
Of course, there were poses my body essentially laughed at, times that I just looked around thinking "well, I used to be able to do that," and I was physically done after an hour. Done. I guess those days on the elliptical with TMZ were as fulfilling for my body as they were for my mind.
But I felt absolutely great. I couldn't get over how great I felt. I felt great all the way through a shift of work at the bar, which pretty much never happens.
I didn't feel great, however, when I woke up this morning. Holy crap, I'm sore. I'm sore in places I haven't been in years, but I guess that makes sense. I suppose it's a good kind of sore though, the kind of sore that makes me feel like I am taking back my life.
Yoga, we are totally getting back together.
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