STRIKE, BEND, LIFT, & FLY

Yoga was my first exercise love.  I start doing yoga when I was around sixteen or seventeen.  Basically, I found a book in my house on yoga which sparked my interest.  My Dad and my Step-Mom are in the used book business so I grew up in a house full of books.  I am not really sure why a yoga book showed up in my house, but there was always such an eclectic mix of reading material laying around (picture stuffed shelving, supplemented by stacks on the floor, tables, etc.) that it did not seem too remarkable.  Anyway, it was/is a great book, and I still have the same copy (spine broken, of course).  The book is The Sivananda Companion to Yoga, which is subtitled A complete guide to the physical postures, breathing exercises, diet, relaxation and meditation techniques of Yoga.  Like most people, however, I really focused on the postures.

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And, as shown in this book, the poses are so beautiful.  There is page after page of serene-faced yogis and yoginis doing near impossible asanas.  Basically, it is “yoga-porn,” i.e. my term for yoga poses so beautifully executed (and photographed) that you can’t help but say to yourself “I want that.”  But, of course, wanting it and doing it are entirely different things.  Still, inspired, I started trying out poses following the instructions given in the book.  And in my late teens with a youthful body and few preconceived notions, I was willing to try a lot more than I might have been inclined to attempt at a later point in life.  I developed a kind of intermittent, self-directed yoga practice based on the book.

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Then, I went to college.  For a couple of years, my only exercise was lots and lots of walking on campus since I had no car. (As an aside, walking around all day from class to class with a heavy book bag, and then to the library and local bar at night should not be discounted in terms of maintaining physical fitness.)  Then, somewhere around junior year I realized for the first time that I could sign up for classes at the campus gym which were included in my tuition.  So I signed up for a yoga class.  I also bought my first mat, sea-foam green.

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My first yoga instructor (I wish I could remember her name, but I can’t) was an Iyengar practitioner.  She was demanding and rigorous.  She was kind, but also a little cold, at least as I remember.  She used to say things like “we don’t just hang out in yoga poses.”  In other words, you were always striving to get more out of a pose, to push yourself more.  She emphasized things like constantly lifting the knee caps with the thigh muscles, in order to get the maximal stretch from the hamstrings (I still find myself doing this all the time).  Also, as with all Iyengar yoga, proper alignment was key.  In short, it was very good basic training, which cultivated a real attention to detail in the poses.  I took her class a couple times a week for a year or so.

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A few years after graduation, I took classes for a while at Unity Woods, the premier Iyengar training center in the DC area, but dropped away for reasons that I can’t even recall.  Later, I did yoga at the local rec center briefly, but found that class a bit boring and too difficult to attend given rush-hour traffic.  After that, I would cobble together a yoga practice for short spells either using videos or the sequences outlined in B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light on Yoga (another amazing book).  Then, I discovered Tai Chi and Kung Fu.  My instructor at the time held a dim view of yoga (i.e. too much locking of joints which impeded chi flow and changeability in movement, not an entirely invalid criticism).  So I bought into an anti-yoga view for a time and ceased even my then minimal practice.  Ultimately, however, I stopped working with that instructor, and began working with my Sifu who sees benefit in virtually all types of movement practice. 

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Around this transition period in my Kung Fu studies, I discovered Yoga Space and began to practice what I think of as “Doug Yoga.”  Yoga Space is my local yoga studio in Hyattsville, Maryland, where I live.  The studio was founded by Doug Thompson over ten years ago, and it is an absolute gem.  Doug comes out of an Iyengar background so his teaching felt familiar to me, but he also adds much more, while abandoning some of the harshness in the traditional Iyengar approach.  His classes are challenging, but as he likes to say “failure is an option”, which I love.  I could enthuse endlessly about Doug as an instructor, but what I think that I appreciate most is how thoughtful his classes are.  Some classes involve a variety of preparatory poses to work up to an ultimate pose, which you may or may not be able to do.  Other classes are intended to work a little bit of everything.  Some classes focus on a particular area, like hips or shoulders.  For a while, we might do vinyasa sequences for part of class, other times we focus on standing poses.  He also mixes in yin yoga and restorative yoga.  So Doug is open to and educated in all these modes of yoga practice, which keeps class interesting.  But most of all, Doug is just a great person who loves yoga and wants to share the joy he finds in it with others.  Layered on top of this, Yoga Space is a neighborhood joint.  It has been a wonderful way to meet many other Hyattsvillians, and we often discuss local happenings and concerns before and after class. 

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So that is yoga now for me.  I go to class two times a week for the most part.  I would like to practice more on my own, but generally fail to make the time, which is a shame.  What I would like most, is to cultivate a practice outside of class focused on certain poses that I think would be particularly beneficial to me.  But for a variety of reasons (a.k.a excuses), I have not done so at this point.  [Update: I have begun a regular yoga routine, which I discuss in a blog post dated 6/17/2017.]  Still, I remain an active yoga practitioner through class, and hope to always do so.  Because I have done yoga for so long, it has become a way for me to assess changes in my body, particularly in terms of the complex interplay between strength and flexibility.  I still aspire to do the beautiful and near impossible asanas that I first saw in the The Sivananda Companion to Yoga over thirty years ago.  But what began as simple desire for certain poses, has now developed into a friendship with yoga, an on-going conversation with a very dear old companion.  Namaste!