Let’s talk about yoga, or, everything you ever wanted to know about yoga but were afraid to ask...or just didn’t care, or never knew you needed to know.

I love yoga. Anyone who knows me, has been exposed to my talking about it (and I am assuming probably correctly that the only people reading this are people who actually know me since I post it on Facebook and I can’t fathom how any stranger might come upon it otherwise). 

I came upon yoga and knew I loved it for the first time about 13 years ago or so when I was living in California. I tried it at home and thought it was cool, and went to a studio and had one of those moments in life where you just know you are where you belong the minute I stepped in the studio. I even knew then I wanted to teach it, but I had only been practicing like 2 weeks and I looked into trainings and the costs, and everything that said you should practice like 5 years before you consider teaching and I kinda gave up at the time. What I remember mostly as my excuse is as a stay at home mom with two very young children it was difficult to do yoga at home when every time I went into a warrior pose I had a kid hanging off my leg.  Fast forward…took it up again about 4 years ago and this time it stuck.  

I started mostly with practicing at home in the beginning, but about the same time I did a hot yoga studio’s new student thingy and did 10 classes over a period of about 30 days. I was to afraid to do a power class and only (haha, only) did 90 minute hatha classes (you non yoga people won’t understand a word of that, but I’ll get to defining things for you here shortly, so just keep up), not really realizing at the time that what I was practicing at home and loving was power/vinyasa type yoga. So, I kept up with my home practice (most of the time) and did what a lot of us poor yoga lovers do and studio hopped different hot yoga studios doing their specials sporadically, but got exposure to different teachers and styles and I do like it HOT! I honestly giggle at people’s horrified looks when I tell them it’s 105 degrees and humid. It ROCKS.  

But I also learned a lot by my solo explorations and my recent journey back in to those has led me to want to tell you all about it (I know you are all like FINALLY!  we’ve been dying to hear this). I seriously started with Comcast on demand. In fact, when they got rid of exercise TV I was pretty pissed. What they have now is a pale shadow. That was an excellent way to try out different yoga routines, and I often ended up buying the DVD’s for the ones I liked. I also utilize reviews on amazon to help me decide on other ones.  I have bought some that ended up in the goodwill bag, but there have been some keepers. My current library is 10, and many of them have more than one class on them. In fact, I took some ribbing on occasion during teacher training by my mentioning of learning this or that from a DVD but the fact is, there are some really good DVD’s out there and the one thing most of them have in common is they are CHEAP. (IT’S A CAPITALS KIND OF POST YA’LL!) Anyhow. I love practicing at a studio, but nursing school is busy work and sometimes just that extra time to get there and get home, I am just not willing to give up. So, the DVD’s have been dusted off and are getting some use again and I am realizing again a whole new appreciation for the variety out there, the challenge of NOT practicing in the heat, and as a teacher getting great ideas for classes.  

But here’s the whole point of this post (remember how I said I ramble?).  YOU ALL SHOULD DO YOGA! I won’t get in to the many benefits, google it, the list is endless. But primary on it and the biggest reason I think everyone should do it is for stress and mental well-being.  It’s in so much of my nursing stuff I read as a recommended therapy for just about anything. DO IT! But you’re asking, Shari, where do I start?  

…To be continued, because this is getting to be one long ass post