(not so) Hot Yoga

Some things I’ve learned about doing Yoga over the past year

• Sometimes I think my yoga teacher thinks I’m a sociopath. I try to stop my face from showing the pain (oh, the pain) by smiling through it (which I had been told you’re supposed to do, because we hold a lot of tension our face), but I think the combination of my body twisting in ways it was never meant to (my left foot goes WHERE??) and the half-smile-grimace combination that results through it freaks Tobie out a bit.
• It’s all in your head. Okay, so I can’t get my leg over my head like that girl on the yoga mat next to me could last night, and honestly, I probably never will, but I feel like so much of Yoga is mental. The other day, I was fighting insomnia yet again and around 2am, my sleep-addled mind got into my head the idea that doing a crow pose would somehow get me to sleep. Now the crow is an arm (basically wrist) balance where you up-end a squat and balance it entirely on your forearms. Why I thought this would be a good idea, I can’t recall. I’ve never been able to do a crow once on the mat. And then that night, I finally lifted my toes off the ground and held a crow. Elated, I promptly fell over. But now I feel like there’s more to these poses than sheer bicep strength alone.
• People always react so negatively when you tell them you’re bad at Yoga. I’m not here for the Yoga pity party, but just sometimes, I wish someone would agree, and say “ehh, you could probably do better”. Look, I know Yoga is your own practice, what you make of it, blah blah, but sometimes it would be nice to get a nod of acknowledgement, when I say my calves are strangely asymmetrical.
• Compression shorts. For the love of god, wear compression shorts. I’ve seen too many balls hanging out in downward facing dog. Compression shorts are your friend.
• If you do Yoga sleep deprived, you will fall asleep during the shavasana. There are few things more awkward than waking up startled, as the class is packing up around you.
• I think I’m finally getting the hang of this whole mindfulness thing. My mind still drifts to my to-do lists, emails, grocery shopping, how disgusting kale smoothies are, etc, but I am feeling calmer, more renewed. I’m feeling like myself again.