My First Yoga Experience

Trying to Get Healthy:

My First Yoga Experience

I am the first to admit: I really need to get healthy.  I have venous dermatitis, I’m overweight, and I’m tired too often.  No denial here, ladies & gentlemen!

My massage therapist (and awesome friend) says, “You should really be doing yoga.”  My amazing hair stylist (and awesome friend) says, “You can borrow my yoga for beginners!”  Well, great, then!  I’m on my way.

The yoga for beginners DVD sits on my entertainment center; creating a rectangular, dust free zone and sings to me its gentle reminder for about 4 weeks.  One day, I remember its gentle song and order a yoga mat on amazon with next day shipping.  My mat arrives and all day I remind myself, “It is yoga day. You’re DOING yoga today.”  So once I get everything else on my list completed or started, I decide its yoga time!

I lay out my mat, fill my new water bottle, don my stretchy apparel…this is where I should add there is a very good reason I’m having my first yoga experience at home, alone.  Primarily, this reason is the stretchy apparel.  I mean, let’s be honest – nobody needs to see everything I’ve got going on draped in spandex. 

Ok, back to setting the scene.  Mat, water bottle, spandex is draped and I’ve got my box fan going.  Because it’s July in Washington and we’re having a “heat wave” and it’s about 80 degrees in my apartment.  Once I actually find the DVD remote that I’ve tucked away because last week my best friend had her 3 kids under 6 years old at my house, I begin to sift through a variety of yoga experiences from my TV screen.

They all sound so inviting, so I choose “wake up the spine.”  3 poses in I realize I’m way out of my league.  My 80 degree clammy hands are sliding on my new mat, creating poses that don’t exist, I’m mumbling under my breath…ok not true, I’m full on talking to the lady with the weird accent on the TV, we’re having a discussion, “what the heck are my sits bones, how am I supposed to push my hands this way in my sweat and still push my hips without actually moving??  What do you mean I need to ‘focus on the quality of my torso on my thighs’?  Woman, what are you talking about?!”  3 minutes in and I’m done.  I take it back to the main menu, ready to pop that DVD out and pretend like I actually did something today even though I just got in a one sided argument with a lady who sounds a bit like a southern serial killer with that accent and calm, creepy voice.

I gather myself.  I choose a much shorter experience.  It’s called “get up and go,” sounds perfect.  This is more my pace, I can tell already.  She’s moving slower and more fully explaining the poses. I’ve dried my sweaty hands and things are going more smoothly.  I’m still annoyed with her voice and telling her how my body parts don’t naturally rest upon the body parts she’s mentioning.  I wonder if she’s an alien.

The last 5 minutes of the 15 I spend with Clementine (it’s what I’ve named her) is quite lovely.  She keeps talking to me about how my butt should be resting on my heels and for the first moment, it is actually touching my heels!  I debate about whether my butt just got bigger or I loosened my muscles and I decide it’s the muscles, probably.  I tell Clementine that I’m feeling more adept now and I think I can improve if I continue to try this daily.  She agrees.  She tells me to return to my sitting position and then it’s over.  Wait…come back, Clementine…I feel like we were just getting to know each other.  She reminds me (via the on screen menu) that she does offer a PM yoga routine as well and I have plenty of day left.

So I am still draped in spandex, about to make dinner, thinking of Clementine and excited to see her again; thus, my first yoga experience.