Today I made a return of a kind. I returned to yoga.
After so many weeks (8 to be precise) of always having something to do on a Thursday evening, I finally organized myself well enough to leave the late afternoon class time open. And so I went to yoga. Hatha yoga, nonetheless. Once more, with feeling, as my mami would say.
My history with yoga is uneven, at best. Although I've tried to become a committed yogi, going two and three times a week to a yoga center and taking on Ashtanga with the same wide-eyed-and-bushy-tailed enthusiasm with which I embark on all my projects, all I got was muscle pains and sprains and the unshakable feeling that I was too short, too stumpy and too awkward to ever be a good yogi.
Plus, since I'm always living five years ahead of myself (in my mind's eye I'm already Dr. G and only months away from celebrating tenure), this "be in the moment" philosophy is basically alien to my psychic constitution.
I much more preferred trotting on the elliptical machine or cycling my heart out on an indoor bike or going to a choreographed weight-training class. But since I haven't been able to go to the gym for a while, I decided I'd try yoga again. Also, since a colleague teaches the class, I thought it would be supportive of me to go (and I was the only faculty member there, so I was glad for that).
Actually, I'm very glad for all of it. She is a careful teacher, who spends time explaining poses so one doesn't end up injured and hurting, and her pace was good. Maybe not as frantic as the Jane Fonda-aerobics-craze-trained part of me would like, but then, frantic isn't yoga, right?
The best part was that I rode my trusty old bike to the athletic center, riding up and down the hills of my small college on the hill (well, some hills I had to walk up, to tell the truth) and I arrived home sweaty, red in the face and exhilarated, and pretty relaxed (well, for me) after the yoga class.
The rains cleared out, the afternoon was gorgeous, the windows are open and the dogs and I are expecting my husband who's coming to visit. Could a day be any better? Not this day.
1 comment:
NICE! Nice all around.
In the first part of your "Safe" writing, I was afraid the story was going to end with the buck's getting up and dashing through the picture window, which apparently mid-Ohio deer have been known to do (...?)! I'm glad he took the easy and (indeed) safe route of sitting still.
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