Gotta Do It

It seems that I just gotta do it. It's that mental monkey being let loose as action. Just gotta do it. Yoga. Yep, it's that simple. That's all I'm really talking about. I'm one of those people that needs to be doing something. Physical exertion is the sweetness of living. Or sweat-ness, depending on your point of view.

Yoga for me is exertion without sweat. I'm not a fan of hot yoga. I get light-headed too easy to add heat into the mix. I just like how good I feel after stretching every muscle available and massaging all the internal organs that get massaged during yoga.

I've been practicing yoga on and off since I was 19 years old. Last January, over a year ago, I made a personal promise to myself to get a yoga teacher certificate. Just for giggles. Just to say I did. Here I am fifteen months later, missed my own deadline, still thinking this is what I want to do. I want that satisfaction of having reached the goal of earning a piece of paper.

I am 6 days into a 30 day challenge I have imposed on myself to simply attend a yoga class every day. I have 21 days left of this 30 day challenge. It's a step in the right direction. What I have learned in the first week:

1. There are VERY few yoga studios that offer Friday evening yoga classes. This means attending a yoga session every day for 30 days is damn near impossible - Fridays are just not offered. I have adjusted my goal. Mostly because I signed up for a killer six week deal. The adjusted challenge is now to attend a yoga session everyday except Fridays for six weeks.

2. I learned that it's a good thing that I did not jump into 200 hour certificated training. This simpler challenge is a great tune up for me to be in enough shape to sign up for a teacher course. If I had signed up straight into certificated training like I thought I wanted to I would be wondering today if I was "good enough" for it. By challenging myself to just attend, just go to class, I think I have set myself up for success.

3. I hurt. I hurt different every day. It's that good hurt that lets me know my muscles are working. I don't know if I will hurt when I get to the fourth week still. I'll let you know.

4. Each class is completely different. Each instructor brings style with her. It is a good thing to be open. Be willing.

5. Hip flexures are a favorite theme for these instructors. After only two days of concentrating on hip flexure I find myself wondering if I will be sitting in full lotus in six weeks. Do I want to?

6. Shoulders and neck is also a favorite topic. My back is already starting to show definition. Okay, that's my imagination, never mind. My shoulders ache. It's a good ache.

7. I wanted to do two classes on Saturday to make up for not having the one Friday class. I learned that I may be a masochist and I need to just stand down.

Six weeks of classes is not exactly going to be a cake walk. I have a two hour commute every week day as it is. Classes are 75 minutes. I don't get home at night until 7:30 p.m.. When I get back from my son's wedding in May I will have to assess which teacher training site will fit my style best. This year - this year - this year.

Why Would I Do This?

Why would I do this? Why would I want to get certified as a yoga instructor? There's money involved, for goodness sake. And I'm a penny pincher (hear them screaming in pain?). There's time and effort involved. I would be pushing myself beyond my current capabilities. I don't know that I have time available with the way I live my life right now. Going to classes, studying, taking more classes and my own personal yoga practice is going to take over my life. What am I thinking?

I mean, I love yoga, but...

The idea started to form last fall during Football Season. I was telling my friends about how the yoga classes at work are free and how much I enjoy participating. Somehow and between cocktails they each agreed I should coach them through a couple of yoga sessions. They felt I could just use the same asanas, poses, we use at work. That Monday all three showed up at my door to be talked through an hour of yoga. Wow, it worked. We spent an hour talking about body alignment as we bent and straightened back up, and did it again. I was super gentle as two of my friends had never done yoga before. My third friend was, and is, ready to get to the next level. I was able to find ways to let her go deeper without changing the poses. The night was a real win-win situation.

We've gotten together several times since then. Not always all three of us, we seem to rotate. One thing that has emerged in time, as the girls get stronger and I try to stay a step ahead, is that we are all dealing with some sort of daily pain. One buddy has a new hip and she is afraid of irritating that area even while she is so pleased to be rediscovering her pliability. Another buddy has osteoarthritis - and her relief from these painful symptoms through yoga has sparked her whole life.

The point here is, none of us are young, nubile, athletic women. None of us are skinny. We hurt. Life is leaving footprints on us. Life wears combat boots apparently. I am finding that if I'm going to lead yoga sessions, I like leading sessions for an older adult. There is nothing to prove in older, mature people. We aren't necessarily worried about being the most limber one in the room. We are however hoping no one sees how red our face is when we do that slight back-bend at the top of the sun salutation.

At my job I am surrounded by people in various stages of decline. I work in a hospital. Four years ago the same patient that walked up to my intake window and flirted with me is the same patient that wheels himself to my now back office (he's kept track of me) to tell me what new medications he is on and how much harder it is to get around than it was just a few years ago. These are the people I think about. If he would join me in yoga, chair yoga, I would be so pleased to see him moving easier than he does now.

I will be retiring from this job in another ten to twenty years. What will I do with myself when I retire? If I'm going to volunteer somewhere I think I would like to volunteer helping the older adult keep and improve on whatever mobility that person still has. If I were a certified yoga instructor that certification would lend some credibility to my teaching ability. People want to be trained and instructed by someone with credibility. By the time I retire I would have ten to twenty years of credibility. I think that's pretty credible.

I see the young people, those in their twenties and early thirties, during yoga class as they go deeper into a pose. They are pushing themselves to be as limber as a yogi. I get that. I understand. I was one of them. I am not one of them any more. I am holding my own.

My Yoga Challenge

A Yoga Instructor has been made available to the employees where I work. He shows up twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and holds class for an hour to stretch us out and get our blood pumping again. Then we float back to our respective departments and offices - disapearing in the catacombs of drudgery and repetitive deadlines.

This yoga is not a mandatory program. Only a few of us show up on any given Tuesday or Thursday. The most that have shown up is eight. Three to four participants is pretty regular. The gentleman gets paid the same regardless of the number of participants. He received a grant in fact - for one year - to come hold classes for the employees. It's a pretty sweet deal for a freelance yoga instructor/personal trainer. For a year he has had a full-on regular gig.

I like it, of course, because I get free yoga instruction. It has been great. There were several classes in a row in November and December that I was the only one to show up. Where else can one get one-on-one training, for free, like I did? I dunno. I am not complaining.

(This is not me...might as well be, but it's not. Wish I knew where I got this photo.)

I have been practising yoga on and off since my first year in college at San Fransisco State. To take care of Physical Education requirements for graduation (that they probably don't even require any longer) I took a semester of yoga and fell in love with being able to move in mysterious and wonderful ways that made me feel good for days, positively days, afterward.

Yoga still has that affect on me. It has been thirty-four years since I was introduced to yoga. I still love it. I can still touch my toes. I can balance on one leg - and I can pick which leg. Taking classes this last year I could feel my shoulders respond to the exertion. I still have muscles.

So here I am, some fifty something years old and I am feeling as good, if not better, than I did in my forties. I am getting exercise twice a week (gosh, that's all it takes?) and now I find myself signing on for more yoga instruction on the weekends, and on week nights. I thought about it a lot (but without the over think). The decision is made. I am signing up to be a yoga instructor. And from what I have seen, I will not be the oldest person getting certified to teach yoga.

My challenge this year is to find a yoga studio that I am willing to pay the $3000+ to to become certified. I've been to a couple studios this year. I need to put these experiences into words.

Coming soon** Review of Studio #1 and the Compelling Reasons I want to be an instructor**

It's been a year

Just noting the passage of time.

People in Our Lives

Lately quite a few interesting people have been showing up in my life. It is amazing the life moments we accumulate. I have met an Olympic Gold Medalist (1984), Matt Dryke. And I have met an Elk Whisperer. I have met motivational speakers. One has a saying, "There are no victims, only volunteers." that will stay with me for quite a while.

I have a train buddy that I've been chatting with most mornings. Some mornings we all stay in our separate corners - often it is safer that way at 5:45 a.m. My train buddy was gone for a week. I'm sorry I didn't ask about her until Wednesday that week. I was informed she is working up at the Oso Mudslide. Isn't it interesting that someone can wear every day a Red Cross jacket, every day, but I don't connect the dots until life is happening around me?

When my train buddy returned the next week, and we've chatted on and off these last two weeks, I learned that this is what she does for vacation. Tracy was there for Hurricane Sandy too. She saves up her vacation pay for times like these.

Me: This is what you do for vacation?

Her: If I took a real vacation my kids would want to come too.

Of course she is a mom, why hadn't I considered that in the mix?

I take people at face value. If there is something I need to know about anyone I hope someone pipes up and tells me. My imagination isn't big enough for all this reality.