Knock Knock. Who’s There? Yoga.
Yoga came knocking on my door 3 times before I let it in.
The first time I heard the word chaturanga was during my freshman year at Skidmore College in Phil Soltanoff’s 3-hour acting class. Phil approached acting as an intensely physical endeavor and began each class with a yoga warm up, which 18 year old me found absolutely unnecessary. My arms were tired, my legs hurt. Who could possibly stand in a lunge and hold it for so long? The first time he demonstrated chaturanga we all laughed as we flopped to the floor, trying to imitate him. He told us it was less about arm strength and more about balance and distributing your weight, but we didn’t believe him.
At that age I did not want to accept that mind and body and breath were interconnected and that I would need to rely on my body if I ever wanted to get my mind right. I was a smart kid, I didn’t need PE. I had my big brain! But I loved Phil as a teacher and I trusted him, so I trudged through his yoga warm ups. I even spent a summer doing Tae Bo workout videotapes with my friend Sara to prepare to audition for a play Phil was directing. (We’d smoke cigarettes before and after Tae Bo, but we both were cast in the production.)
—
I was 30 and I had just been dumped. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was shocked and so sad. At the same time, I was dealing with sciatic nerve pain in my left leg from running. I just wanted some sort of relief. There was a hot yoga studio on the corner near my apartment that I walked by frequently and always ignored until one day I felt an incredible pull towards the idea of stretching and sweating out the pain. I signed up online for a 5:30pm class and showed up to a locked door. I waited about 15 minutes and went home. I was so disappointed. I needed to be in a hot studio. I googled other options and found a 7:30pm class a little further away, signed up, and got in the car. The class was hard and intense and just what I needed. I was hooked. I took classes regularly for a couple of years. I remember not wanting to be another white girl walking down Mass Ave with a rolled up yoga mat, but there I was.
I can recall teachers talking about breath-per-movement and inhale-on-this and exhale-on-that and not being able to keep up, and not understanding why it mattered. I told myself that I would just skip the breathing part. What I really wanted was the workout - at that point, getting as much exercise as possible was the goal.
It helped but didn’t heal my pain, and I kept running. I eventually stopped going to classes when I began marathon training. Long runs took up all my time and I couldn’t keep myself hydrated enough between hot yoga and long runs. Running became my priority for the next few years.
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2019. I had moved out of the city a couple years before. I was facing 40. I had run my last marathon, I had finally stopped obsessively tracking the time and pace and distance of all of my runs. I just didn’t have it in me anymore. Old injuries weren’t healing. I still would run and go to the gym, but it was time to put my body back together. I must have known it on some subconscious level because just like the last time, I felt this tug, this urge to go to yoga, seemingly out of nowhere. I looked up studios in my town. I was intimidated but I dug out my mat. I found an early evening Friday gentle class in a gorgeous studio 5 minutes away. As I arrived anxious and pathologically early, Sarah the teacher was walking in with a big crystal singing bowl.
Although it was a technically easy class, I was challenged. I didn’t understand everything I was supposed to be doing, but something kept me going back. I followed Sarah to another studio across town for more classes. I tried things out. I decided a particular 8:30am class was too hard. I found a basics class. I discovered I really liked slow flow and had no desire for hot yoga anymore. I took a yin workshop. I was starting to get it about the breathing. I was hooked again. And then of course, COVID.
I was at home alone, but connected to the virtual community Sarah was creating with live virtual and pre-recorded classes. A regular yoga schedule gave my unprecedented days an anchor. And I discovered a new freedom in classes at home: I was less afraid to make the practice my own - to take modifications, to rest more, to try something new, to take a risk and tip over and fall down. Even though I’d found my local classes friendly and welcoming, there was still an urge within me to fit in, to keep up, to not be noticed. To stay small. But at home alone, I had room to explore. And I expanded. I didn’t even realize it until many months later, attending my first outdoor group class since the pandemic hit. All those hours at home alone got me very comfortable and confident in making my practice my own, and I wasn’t about to give it up. As I made my way back to group classes, I learned to take in the teaching while making the modifications I needed without worrying about what anyone else thought.
Eventually I tried out the 8:30am class again, and now it’s not too hard anymore - it’s my favorite. I took some meditation classes and deepened my practice. One thing led to another, (yadda yadda yadda, as they’d say on Seinfeld) and I find myself writing little essays on a website I made with the intent to knock on someone’s door, inviting them to yoga.