Yoga

I’m getting ready to go to a yoga class this morning. My feelings surrounding yoga are mixed. I found myself interested in yoga after Elizabeth was born. When she was about 3 months old, I fell in our walk in closet while taking off my jeans. I just lost my balance. As a result, I slammed my head against the molding of the door and landed squarely on my tail bone. My doctor informed me that I had cracked my tail bone and prescribed some heavy pain killers. The pain killers made me feel loopy, so I stuck to ibuprofen and continued to run. Cracked butt bone or not, I was determined to whittle my backside and stomach down to it’s pre-pregnancy state. And like all unwise decisions, my persistent running exacerbated the problem. My hip flared up in protest. I ended up in physical therapy and unable to run for half a year.

I decided to take up yoga instead. I did what I always do. I hit the library. Scanning the shelves, I checked out everything I could find regarding the practice of yoga. The whole idea appealed to me. Concepts of peace, acceptance, not pushing, embracing your breath, were all ideas a new mother like myself could use each day. The books pictured tight, lean, mellowed out Gumbies, bending their bodies with blissful serenity. I’ve always wanted to obtain such a humming sense of peace and grace in my body. Speaking as someone who can’t even take her jeans off with ease and grace, I knew yoga would be a stretch (no pun intended).

I read the books, checked out videos, bought my own sticky mat and practiced at home. Yet each time I tried to bend, reach, and follow my breath to embrace the yin, the yang begged me to put on a pair of boxing gloves and jab the crap out of those buzzing black flies of anxiety thumping against the carefully placed screens in my mind.

I’ve gone back to yoga since then at different points in my life. When we were in China I brought along Rainbow Mars and her yoga videos. (Yes her name is actually Rainbow Mars). The routines helped combat jet lag and the intense stress of the trip. I figure my difficulty in fully embracing yoga means that it probably has something to teach me. I could use a little mellowing out for sure. So, Josh has taken the kids to the park and I will try this yoga class. We’ll see what happens. Hopefully I won’t twitch at any point in the class.

Later today, Josh and I are going to play some tennis. So if deep breathing and stretching doesn’t do it for me this morning, smashing a little yellow ball on the courts for an hour should be fun.