Yoga Challenge

I love my diet. It works well for me and has greatly, greatly improved the quality of my life. As readers will surely find out over time, I am always trying to learn more, listen to my body and tweak my diet as necessary.

However…

As focused as I am on the quality of the food that I put into my body, I have been equally unfocused on being physically active. I don’t think I can call myself a healthy person if I spend most of every day sitting down inside, complaining of achy muscles and weakness – even if I eat lots of raw greens, sprouts, fermented goodies, and other magnificent foods. At this point, I am a very lopsided health nut.

Thus, my new challenge: 100 days of yoga practice.

Perhaps this is asking too much of my very out of shape self. I don’t care. I sense very strongly that it is time to allot a large part of my attention to conscious movement. My diet is largely habit now. I can channel any energy I once had to spend figuring out how to eat only living plant foods into learning how to have a daily yoga practice.

Where I stand now: constantly achy shoulders and neck. Frequently achy legs. Tightness associated with breathing. Almost always an underlying anxiety – difficult to cure because I don’t know what is causing it. Lack of strength in arms and legs.

Out of respect for my light wallet, these practices are likely to be mostly if not entirely at home, with no one but books, movies, internet, and the memories of past yoga instructors to guide me. I have one wonderful book by Linda Sparrowe and Patricia Walden called The Woman’s Book of Yoga and Health. By the end of these 100 days, I intend to be able to comfortably get through any sequence of the book (with the exception of those specifically for pregnancy and menopause – I’ll wait a few years for those). If I feel the urge to do Qigong or Tai chi sometimes instead of yoga that will be fine.

I know that I will not be able to do a two hour session every day, in fact, probably only rarely. My hope is that most days will be somewhere between 30 minutes and 1.5 hours. Some days will likely only be 15-20 minutes. My goal is simply to show up at the mat every day for 100 days.

DAY 1: The Woman’s Essential Sequence

This sequence officially has twenty-six poses. I did eleven. It took me about 35 minutes.

I noticed several things. Firstly, I am very out of shape and far less flexible than I once was. Secondly, my floor needs to be swept.

Thirdly, it felt so entirely incredible. On one level, it simply felt good to move my body after so long of embracing lethargy. More surprising and interesting, though, was how much gratitude I felt from my body for showing it the respect to pay attention to its needs. I was standing in Mountain Pose and almost started to cry. Even Mountain Pose was transformative: standing balanced and grounded with feet together, spine lengthening upwards, shoulders dropping away from ears as hands face hips with fingers touching.

I really do need this. I will plan to record my progress here with complete honesty. Already I am looking forward to tomorrow’s practice…