When I was in middle school and
early high school I had a regular yoga practice at a studio in Miami. I started going to Basic level classes and
gradually worked my way up to Intermediate/Advanced, meeting a few really
inspiring yoga teachers along the way. I
felt like I was getting serious about yoga and even toyed with the idea of
working for my teaching certification.
My grandparents bought me a really nice yoga mat as a Chanukah gift one
year and I still have it. As high school
pressed on, I got busier and 90 minute yoga classes plus travel time each way
just did not fit into my packed schedule (read: four year plan to go Ivy if it
killed me). I stopped going to yoga but
I kept in touch with the receptionist, who I had become friends with, and a couple
of the teachers. One of them, notable
for his use of reverberating sound bowls during his classes, went on to start a
yoga and wellness movement on South Beach and I still receive his email
updates. Another teacher was my absolute
favorite because I loved that at the ends of her classes she would give each
student a mini forehead massage with chakra oil during savasana. I still have a little bottle of that oil and
it still has a certain comfort to it.
She moved to Puerto Rico where she is happily married with an adorable
son and we keep in touch on Facebook.
When I
started college I sought out a yoga studio to try here in Boston. I knew I did not like gym yoga because it
felt too exercise-y and not spiritual enough.
I liked starting class chanting Om’s and feeling that my practice had a
meaning to it beyond exercise. I went to
one class at the studio I found but I quickly became wrapped up in classes and
extracurriculars and adjusting to the fact that the weather outside was very,
very different from what I was used to in sunny South Florida. I went to the gym sometimes but it wasn’t
really a big part of my life. I had
brought the nice yoga mat with me and it sat in the corner of my tiny dorm room
the entire year except for the one excursion to a class. Yoga was one of those things I always really
earnestly meant to do, but it somehow always fell by the wayside.
Part way
through this past summer at home in Miami, I started working out a lot and
lifting weights. It was mostly as a
healthy outlet to combat stress. In the
fall I came back to Boston for classes and at that point I was going to the gym
nearly every day. I was benching and I
could lift more than my body weight with my quads. I was really, really excited about that. I also did not quite understand two things
that tie together: slowly lifting heavy weights does not actually burn that
many calories, and it will make you bulk up even if you’re eating healthy. Which I was not exactly doing, because in my
mind I was going to the gym every day and that easily justified eating whatever
I pleased. Certain articles of clothing
stopped fitting me and I started bringing cardio days back into the mix but it
didn’t quite work.
At home in
Miami again for a few weeks for Winter Break, I worked with a trainer who
taught me some important fundamentals.
The biggest thing was that our bodies do not know that we live in modern
times, and will interpret anything we do physically in evolutionary terms. If you lift heavy weights slowly, your body
will think you need to move boulders on a daily basis in order to survive and
it will store extra body fat to make sure you will have the bulk and strength
to do that. If, on the other hand, you
exhaust your muscles by lifting lighter weights more quickly and with more
repetition, your body will think you need to run away from predators to survive
and it will get more lean. The food
component is based on the same primal responses: if you eat every three hours
you are telling your body that there is an abundance of food and it does not
need to store any extra body fat, but wait four hours between meals and your
body will think you are having trouble finding food and will store fat to make
sure you don’t die. It’s quite considerate
of it, really, but if you don’t understand these mechanisms it can be very easy
to accidentally put on weight. When
you’re only five foot two like me, extra weight is very noticeable. And it’s not about being skinny, it’s about
being healthy (looking and feeling).
My trainer
started me on a circuit training regimen with weights and sent me back to
Boston for the spring semester with exercise routines in hand. I alternate strength training circuit days
with cardio days, as the cardio is just as important for your heart and for fat
burning. It’s been a few months of this
now and it’s been going really, really well.
I feel healthy and strong. A few
weeks ago while doing a drop set on the shoulder press machine, I felt
something hurt in the back of my right shoulder. It seemed to be one of those tiny muscles
really deep in there that I couldn’t reach to stretch. I wouldn’t call it an injury but it was
certainly a strain, and moving my arm the wrong way was painful. A (knowledgeable) friend took a look at it
for me and recommended that I go easy on my shoulder for a while and avoid
moving my arm above my horizontal shoulder line.
I adapted my workouts to make sure I wasn’t neglecting my
upper body but was still taking care of my shoulder so as not to turn a twinge
into a full on injury. It was then, as I
added in a lot more stretching post-workouts, that yoga popped into my
mind. It’s funny but a lot of people
turn to yoga as a result of an injury and I gravitated to it as well. I went back to the studio I had tried
freshman year; it had changed locations to a beautiful, new space and I went on
a Sunday night to try it. I brought the
yoga mat with me; it had been sitting in the corner of my dorm room yet again. The studio had that familiar yoga studio feel
and smell to it. It felt like home. Most yoga studios do, I have found. The teacher and the class were great and I
really stretched into my shoulder.
The next
week I felt like I was ready to get back on my shoulder and I slowly eased back
into my exercises. Thankfully all went
well and my shoulder seems to be fine. I
still pay a little extra attention to it.
As for yoga, I have continued to practice. A friend introduced me to a different studio
here that offers $5 community classes on weekday afternoons. At that price (as opposed to the usual $15 a
pop) going once a week is no problem.
The Thursday afternoon class is taught by one of the best teachers in
Boston and I have gone twice so far.
This studio too feels like home and I feel at home on my mat. I’ve come full circle and feel much more
balanced now that I have reincorporated yoga in my fitness routine. I’ve added some yoga into my post-workout
stretches and I’ll even flow through a vinyasa or two in the morning or at
night before I go to sleep. I’m learning
to use the physiological effects of specific poses to my advantage and also
deepen into my muscles. Yoga is also a
much different experience now that I have muscle strength from working out, as
opposed to six years ago when yoga was the only athletic activity I did at
all. I’m glad that I have found a place
for it in my life again.
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