2013 has truly become a transforming year. To my own surprise, I have embraced what I previously considered line-dancing on rubber mats. In reality, I have always loved yoga. But, I loved it for different reasons. Earlier this year, my love of yoga stemmed from the 90 minutes that Rene was in class. During these precious 90 minutes, I could catch up on “Gold Rush Alaska” and “Bering Sea Gold” without interruption. There was nary ounce of shame for being so engrossed in the relentless search for gold by highly unqualified “miners”. It also gave me some quiet time to tune my bike while scouring the cycling forums for deals on shiny new components that I could install during next weeks yoga class. Rene would come home totally blissed out from her yoga experience, so it was a win-win.
All of this “me time” recently came to an end when Rene coaxed me into checking out Sanctuary Yoga in person. I had been stalling the inevitable for a long time, but my general lack of flexibility provided a good excuse. About 3 weeks ago, I attended my first class. Luckily, it was a small class with just Rene, myself and one other yogi. Steve Cull is the impossibly limber instructor that led me down this path to yoga enlightenment. I borrowed a well used mat from him and we began. We started with a little stretching and intention setting then it kicked into high gear. Overall, I was more bendy than expected. My hamstrings were ridiculously tight, though. Any pose that really stretched the hammys made me want to throw up or pass out. Other than the uncontrollable shaking anytime my core activated, the poses and flows went awkwardly well. Picture a newborn fawn taking first steps. Yep, that’s me. Realizing that my core is more rotten than strong, the final resting pose was a very welcome finale. I thought the class was pretty demanding, but Rene let me know that Steve took things easy since he knew it was my first class. It was a really good mix of physical strength and spiritual mindfulness. I appreciated and savored every minute of it. Three weeks later, I find myself rocking a Manduka yoga mat and looking forward to attempting Crow at the next class. There are couple weeks of gold mining action still sitting on the DVR, but my bike is still getting plenty of attention. Namaste.
In case there is any doubt, those are photos of Steve… definitely not me… the shorts are too long 🙂
Me Paleo. 