I've always enjoyed exercising. I like to feel my heart thumping and the rush of energy to accomplish my daily goal. I never ever stretched. And definitely didn't go to a yoga class. So after signing up for the Marine Corps Marathon in 2007 I decided I needed a plan to run injury free. Stuff like my ankle and the occasional hip was starting to hurt. I began attending a weekly yoga class as a part of my plan. And it was a struggle. I was in the right class (flow based yoga) but good grief my body did not want to move in the way that my teacher, Maria Garre, talked about moving. She would say inhale and I would think a swear word. Fast forward to a severe achilles injury a few years later and yoga became the mainstay of my daily exercise routine. It was a way to stay fit and to build up my weak ankles. And then I discovered that a few breaths into Surya Namaskar B I had the same sense of wellbeing, heartpumping, world peace solving calm that it sometimes took 2 or 3 hours of running to achieve. I was hooked. I could write a dissertation about the positive effects of yoga. But what it did for me was connect me to a reason to move (exercise). I am more flexible and my ankle is amazing and I feel more present, but most of all when I practice yoga I feel connected. To myself. To being the master of my own mind and body. To God. To a sense of the cycles and patterns and flows in nature and in my own life. Yoga is the practice on my mat and it is the practice of my life. Living, breathing, loving. Yoga. |
0 Comments
|
AuthorHYoga practice as connection to the truest self, empowering, authentic, strengthening Archives
March 2018
Categories |