‘Yoga kicked my butt’
I’m dead serious when I say I don’t do yoga. After all, yoga kicked my butt, and almost killed me during my first encounter with it several years ago.
Forget the promises of stress relief, improved concentration, increased flexibility and balance, as well as numerous health benefits.
Practicing yoga is supposed to eventually lead you down a path to serenity and enlightenment, but I wasn’t buying it.
My first 90-minute struggle with yoga left me stressed out, wiped out and ready to scream for mercy in a class where no one is allowed to talk. “They call this exercise. I call it torture. And what’s wrong with talking, anyway,” I remember thinking as I held my entire body weight in various contorted poses for what seemed like an eternity as my muscles quivered.
Despite my frustration, somehow I managed to survive that first yoga class.
When I woke up the next day, I felt like a truck had hit me. My abs hurt so much that I could barely lift my body out of bed. I quickly realized that every muscle in my entire body from my head to my toes felt like it had been set on fire.
I mustered up my courage and energy to tangle with yoga a few more times that same year, but I still didn’t understand what all of the fuss was about.
Yoga was beginning to sweep across the nation, like an exercise giant, threatening to shatter all the knowledge, experience and health benefits I thought I had achieved through good old-fashioned, high-impact aerobics.
I’ve been exercising regularly for about 15 years, and I’m from the old school of exercise fanatics. If you’re not jumping up and down until it feels like your heart is going to explode, then you’re not working hard enough. It’s that simple.
For the next few years every time someone even mentioned yoga, I just cringed. I figured what was the sense in trying to master yoga when I could keep doing high-impact aerobics for the rest of my life.
So what if it wasn’t trendy? I’m a 46-year-old woman, who got over trying to be trendy about two decades ago.
Yoga, which is supposed to promote serenity, really doesn’t fit into my stressed-out life, anyway. I’m a caffeine-addicted, deadline-thriving junkie, who actually gets an adrenaline rush from a challenging writing or editing assignment.
“I really don’t do yoga because I’m too stressed out to relax” is my mantra.
My classic type-A personality won’t allow me to relax, and that’s the way I like it, thank you very much. No one or nothing is going to take the stress out of me. “That would destroy me,” I thought.
But it was that same type-A personality that finally drove me to take another crack at yoga. For months on end, I kept threatening to tackle the yoga story – even if it was the last thing I did.
And finally the time had come. I received the approval from my supervisors to go ahead with the yoga stories. I was ready to confront my greatest exercise fears head on. As part of my assignment, I decided that I would give yoga another try and write a first-person story about my experience.
As I stood in the hallway at the Uniontown Area YMCA waiting for the Power Yoga class to begin, I tried to calm my fears by interviewing some of the yogis about their experiences and why they keep coming back night after night.
When the doors opened to the aerobics room, I saw many of my usual exercise buddies on their way out of the high-low impact step aerobics class that I usually take.
Each one of them had the same reaction as they saw me enter the room. “You’re going to take the yoga class, tonight?” they asked, as they began to chuckle. They’re well aware that I don’t do yoga.
As I walked into the room, I quickly removed my shoes and socks. Yoga is done in your bare feet. I don’t know about you, but I like to exercise with the Nikes still on my feet, thank you. I felt just a little bit naked with my toes exposed. And I really don’t like the idea of seeing everybody else’s feet, either.
After I got over the initial shock of naked toes and feet, I grabbed two yoga mats. Most of the regular yogis, about 40 people on this particular night, brought their own mats.
And then Wade Zinter, who calls himself a “yoga guru” and attends every class with his wife, Leslie, the yoga instructor, told me to lay my mat next to his so he could whisper the name of the various poses to me. Wade said he didn’t want to disturb anyone else in class.
This was another hurdle for me to jump. Unlike other exercise classes, no one talks in yoga class. It’s very quiet because everyone is concentrating and focusing on their poses, clearing their minds and trying to achieve a state of total relaxation.
“What do you mean I can’t talk?” I thought to myself. I can’t make it through five minutes without talking – let alone a 90-minute class.
Leslie walked over to the thermostat and immediately turned up the heat to 95 degrees. I could smell the smoldering furnace as it cranked out the heat and quickly warmed up the room.
The room was filled with the sound of unusual chanting-type music. The music seemed very appropriate for yoga, which originated in India more than 5,000 years ago.
Although the aerobics classes require temperatures in the 60s so the participants are more comfortable, yoga is just the opposite. Yoga is done at higher temperatures so muscles can move and stretch easily.
“Remember to do all of your breathing through your nose,” said Leslie, as she instructed the class. “If you get into a pose, and it causes you any discomfort, you can get out of that pose and relax until you’re ready to resume again.”
The yoga routine began with “sun salutations,” various postures that stretch the body from head to toe. The salutations are designed to build strength and flexibility and include poses such as lunges, planks and “upward dog” and “downward dog.”
I managed to make it through the “sun salutations” in pretty good shape, and I began to feel a little less stressed out about the class.
We quickly moved through a series of various more complicated poses, and I actually stopped taking notes because I was trying to concentrate and focus on what I was doing.
But when it came time for the class to strike the “half-moon pose,” I knew that I had finally met my match. Although I tried desperately to stand on one leg with the other leg and one of my arms extended into the air, I didn’t have the strength or balance to do it. Every time I tried, I almost fell down.
Wade, who was still standing next to me and could see that I was struggling, walked over and actually held one of my legs off the ground to provide the balance I needed to make it through the pose. I breathed a sign of relief when I finished the same pose on the opposite leg.
Another pose, called the “spinal twist,” actually felt pretty good to me because that is a stretch I’m familiar with from my regular aerobics classes.
But when it came time to do “the plow,” I drew the line. “The plow” is a yoga pose where you lie flat on your back and then extend your legs into the air. You eventually take your legs over your head and onto the floor behind your head. I remember thinking, “You must be kidding me. That’s never going to happen.”
My version of “the plow” was extending my legs into the air. That was as far as I could go because I was afraid I would end up hurting myself. Wade assured me that it was OK to stop if I didn’t feel comfortable with the pose.
I couldn’t believe it because the 90-minute class was quickly coming to an end. We had finally reached my favorite part of the yoga class.
Leslie turned off the bright lights and told everyone to lie in “the corpse pose.” I was lying flat on my back with my hands next to my body and my eyes closed. Leslie instructed everyone to keep their eyes closed and to begin to relax every muscle in their bodies.
As I was lying in the “corpse pose,” I actually felt almost relaxed. At one point, I thought I was going to fall asleep. The concept is to reach a state of total relaxation without falling asleep.
But Leslie assured me before class started that it’s OK to fall asleep, and it happens in yoga class all of the time. Sometimes when the class ends, Leslie walks around the room and actually wakes up snoring participants.
I managed to stay awake, and when Leslie turned on the lights, I realized that I did it. I actually made it through an entire 90-minute yoga class. It really wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, and it certainly didn’t compare with the first time I tried it.
Maybe I was being a little too hard on myself or maybe I’m really not too stressed out to relax and do yoga.
But now, I’m worried about something else. How am I going to feel when I wake up in the morning? Will I actually be able to get out of bed and get dressed without experiencing too much pain or discomfort?
When I woke up the next day, my abs hurt a little bit, but the pain wasn’t unbearable. I even made it to my weight lifting and strength-training class at the Y the following night.
Leslie, who also teaches that class, said her husband, Wade, wanted me to try the two-hour yoga class on Thursday night so I could get the full effect of yoga for my story. During that class, Wade walks around the room to instruct and adjust aspiring yogis in proper techniques.
Call me crazy, but I actually agreed to try it again.
Who knows, maybe I’ll follow in Wade’s footsteps and start calling myself a “yoga guru.” Considering my personality traits, I could become relentless and a bit obsessive/compulsive in my pursuit to find new people to convert into yoga believers.
If that happens, everybody who knows me better look out because I’ll be on another mission – taking them on a trip to yoga land.
Now, I must say “Namaste,” which I learned means have a pleasant journey. “Namaste” is the word the yogis recite as each Power Yoga class comes to an end.