The sad thing is, I'm in better shape than I've been for ten years

[resonant]

Man, yoga is hard. It's amazing what a wide variety of ways there are of not being able to complete a move. I mean, you can be unable to complete the move because you're not flexible enough, or not strong enough, or because your belly gets in the way, or because your calves get in the way, or because you've got a deformed right hand and can't spread all five fingers without curving your palm, or because something goes 'sproing' in your right shoulder, or because something in your left hip sends an ominous little warning twinge of pain out as if your body were glaring at you and saying, "Just try it, I dare you."

I didn't believe I'd be able to get my heart rate up doing something so slow. Foolish me.

I've always wanted to be one of those old ladies who do yoga. Maybe if I get started now, I'll be able to do it by the time I'm seventy.

Comments

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

The good thing about yoga is, if you're doing it, you're doing it, even if you can't do a perfect pose.

The bad thing is, there is no perfect pose.

Another good thing, in my class at least: nobody, not even the really fit ones, has a perfect body.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It's true -- I can feel that it did me good (in that I ached in all sorts of new places afterwards).

Our instructor has pretty close to a perfect body, but the rest of the class was reassuringly human.

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

Our teacher, who is in her sixties and is amazingly able with the poses, always points out the asymmetries in her body. She believes that everyone's body is asymmetric. I am all self-conscious about being fat and having huge boobs and a leg injury that limits my range of motion, blah blah, and it's pretty cool to see that I'm on the same level with people who are very athletic and muscular on some poses.

I do Iyengar yoga which is anyway designed to make sure that you get the benefit of the poses even if you can't do them in the classical way.

I haven't been to yoga in six weeks and I'm very psyched that I get to go again this Sunday.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

I do marathons, okay? I am a rock climber. I do week-long backpack trips carrying a third of my body weight. And every time I take a yoga class, all these older and fatter women kick my butt.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

That makes me feel better. There were certainly several senior citizens in that room with their chests flat to their knees in an enviable way.

[miss-pryss.livejournal.com]

so hard, right?! but it feels so *virtuous*.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It does!

[calathea.livejournal.com]

I've been doing yoga regularly for three years and there are poses that defeat me entirely even after all this time. However there are others that I would never have dreamed I could pretzel myself into that feel as natural as breathing now. So it does come eventually, and it's so worth it.

And you might like one of the most common mantras in yoga: progression, not perfection. :)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

That's inspiring! I enjoyed it, in a strange way, and plan to keep doing it if I can. (The timing of the class is very inconvenient to me, alas.)

[pun.livejournal.com]

I always say, yoga is not for sissies!

And, you know, what I usually do to work out involves people kicking and punching me!

In fact, I just went to a yoga class this morning, and the 'sproing' in the right shoulder thing kept utterly defeating me. And then there was this pose where my butt was on the ground and my knees were stacked one on top of the other, legs bent. And the instructor says, "Now bend forward." And I'm all *inclines torso half a centimeter* yup, here I am, bending forward.

I'm trying to stick with it because I know it's what I need, but it's so hard being so crappy at something!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

And I'm all *inclines torso half a centimeter* yup, here I am, bending forward.

Yes, exactly! Maybe one of the reasons it feels so virtuous is because you have to learn to accept little tiny increments as being good enough.

[theodosia.livejournal.com]

I HEAR you, sister!

My yoga teachers keep telling me it's far better to be too tight-jointed at first, because you're far less likely to injure something seriously with over-stretching.

[painless-j.livejournal.com]

Very true. I'm limber, really rubber-like, and I over-stretch regularly 'cos I don't have enough muscles to keep a posture but am bendy enough to stretch all the way. Injured my knee some half a year after beginning doing yoga, and limped for two months.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Huh. I don't think I've ever known anyone who was too flexible.

[ecaterin.livejournal.com]

:D A lot of the zero-impact workout I use was adapted from yoga. When I started I could bike 20 miles easily but couldn't do more than 20 minutes of this workout. Legs shaking, dripping with sweat, heaving breath....I was amazed :) I also couldn't touch the tops of my feet let alone my toes. I can now easily put the palms of my hands on the floor - when did THAT happen? I can also clap my hands behind my body - and that is even weirder :P It took 2 years, but my previously totally muscle bound state has gradually been converted into a loose, longer-muscle body that I'm enjoying. You'll get there!

[100wordspermin.livejournal.com]

I'm dealing with plantar fasciitis, and some knee issues right now, so I'm kind of limited in the activities I can do. Could I ask you some more about your zero-impact workout?

thanks!

[ecaterin.livejournal.com]

It's T-Tapp (http://t-tapp.com/). It was actually developed as a rehabilitation workout (I have knee & back issues & this has stabilized both of them as well as getting rid of chronic pain). The evolution of her innovation work went through a funny twist when people in the modeling/beauty industry realized what her workout could do (it really gives you a graceful body & well defined waist) so she went through a totally funny 180 degree turn for a decade using this amazing rehab workout...to make pretty people prettier :P

There's an emphasis on "weight loss" on the main website - marketing, really, cause the design of the workout is about strength, flexibility, stamina and rehab-ing injuries plus strengthening against further injury.

I have to say, I've been muscle bound for years with very blocky square muscles. I've been in good shape most of my life, but NEVER like this workout has made me. And my entire musculature has been altered to long slender graceful muscles - I've never looked like this :P And I'm not a rigorous work-out person - 2-3 X per week about 25 minutes at a time is my maximum.

Check out her rehab-specific workout routines - they sound like a great place for you to start :)

[100wordspermin.livejournal.com]

Excellent; thank you!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Cool! Good to know it can happen.

[ecaterin.livejournal.com]

Yes! You just have to think of it more as "sculpture" than "work out." Paring down and then rebuilding your tissues without damage is a very very slow process, months & years worth of a process. When you start looking at it like that, you can just relax & enjoy each increment of change for itself and stop worrying about "success" or "strength" or "flexibility" in the abstract. Today I can go this far & hold this long - and I can feel exactly what that feels like for today. And thats good enough :)

[octette]

Yoga is soooooo hard. I've been doing it off and on for almost eight years (more on than off this past year), and no matter what, my body always gets in the way of moving itself. *g*

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I've been reading your yoga posts! They make me feel like such a hopeless case! I always read them while chanting inside my head, "Pretty sure she's younger than I am ... pretty sure she's younger than I am ..."

[octette]

Heeeee. Yes, I'm 27. But also I'm incredibly flexible from what amounts to about 13 years of gymnastics and dance; if my body wasn't so thick and wide, I wouldn't be having a lot of the trouble I'm having.

But I also have really tight, scared shoulders, and a tight, scared chest. Back when I was doing Bikram yoga, the chest-opening poses, where we had to lean back and open our shoulders and show our throats always made me cry, and I couldn't never really be in the posture, since I spent so much time just trying to position my body and stop crying and move my shoulders just a little bit. It's frustrating.

I mean, I understand your pain. :)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I cried at the end of this class, actually. Which was 5% being emotionally moved by the whole thing and 95% hormonal -- I was in the week of the month when life insurance commercials and Lite Rock make me cry -- but the instructor seemed torn whether she should be flattered or very worried. (Some people cry well in public. I'm not one of them.)

[zebra363.livejournal.com]

I mean, you can be unable to complete the move because you're not flexible enough, or not strong enough, or because your belly gets in the way, or because your calves get in the way, or because you've got a deformed right hand and can't spread all five fingers without curving your palm, or because something goes 'sproing' in your right shoulder, or because something in your left hip sends an ominous little warning twinge of pain out as if your body were glaring at you and saying, "Just try it, I dare you."

I love this paragraph (but not yoga)!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I actually liked it, in a battered sort of way. I felt taller when I was done.

[painless-j.livejournal.com]

But it feels so good. As for me, the most feel-good exercise there is.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It feels different from other exercises. Relaxing and strenuous at the same time instead of one after the other.

[gnomad.livejournal.com]

Icon &hearts! The lazy cat is just perfect.

[caseylane.livejournal.com]

Yep, I crack up when people say yoga isn't athletic enough...hard enough. I laugh like a loon and invite them to a beginners course. They never take me up on it though.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Hee! I never thought it was easy, but I assumed most of the difficulty was that you had to be flexible; I didn't know how strong you had to be.

[corinna-5.livejournal.com]

I am another too-flexible person, and in learning how to use my muscles and joints to support me the right way, I have had some interesting yoga epiphanies. Like, having to learn the right way to put your hand on the floor. That was humbling, because it's hard! Now I am working on standing. Yes. Still having some issues with that one.

But when I started yoga I had the balance of an old lady, and no flexibility at all, and now after about four years of practice all told over seven years (long breaks), I'm able to do some fairly advanced poses, including some that I laughed and said "yeah, RIGHT" the first time I saw them. I still cannot get up into handstand by myself, but I managed the other day once I was in it to balance on my own away from the wall. (Then I realized what I was doing, and immediately fell. Next year.)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Cool! I've been doing weightlifting, which I think kind of spoils me -- when you start out as weak as I am, weightlifting shows results so fast -- but I wanted to try yoga because I'd like to see the results when I'm seventy and can still cut my own toenails.

Yoga is

[wolfdancer.livejournal.com]

A state of mind, as much as a point of being in a position, It is about breath, of being, and seeing.
Water yoga rocks.

Re: Yoga is

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Water yoga sounds cool!

[blacksquirrel.livejournal.com]

I have also recently taken up yoga, and you're so right - it's not hard in any of the ways I thought it would be, then suddenly, unexpectedly, I run into something I can't do at all. For me, it's my hamstrings holding me back. The instructor keeps repeating that we should take it slow and eventually they'll release - but another woman in my class has been doing it for several years and she's still waiting for that release . . . any day now.

But regardless, I've really been enjoying it. I'm a perfectionist in so many ways - it's kind of wonderful to go somewhere for an hour and just be ok with being really bad at something - and sometimes I surprise myself and I'm not so very bad after all :)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Hee -- maybe hamstring release is like forgiving someone. Just have to push gently at it for years and years and then it happens all at once.

[skuf.livejournal.com]

I bet yoga is really good for you - and would probably be especially good for someone like me, who's naturally unflexible and stiff-jointed. But I can just picture how each and every session would be a non-stop string of FAILURES, and I really don't have the mental strength for that. So it's walking/biking/jogging for me (which makes it sound like I exercise every waking hour - it's just the exercises that I can do without being a complete failure at them…)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I can just picture how each and every session would be a non-stop string of FAILURES, and I really don't have the mental strength for that.

I imagine that depends on the instructor. Ours seemed to take the position that she wasn't leading an exercise class; she was leading a very physical meditation session. So she started out with a reminder that we all have different physical challenges and we all have to do the moves our own way, and during the session she'd say things like, "Now walk your hands back toward your knee, and breathe deeply, and remember to be fully in this moment, because this moment is all we have." So it was very strenuous and very relaxing at the same time. Weird. Not like normal exercises.

Me, meanwhile, I can't bike at all! My balance is awful.

[blacksquirrel.livejournal.com]

Oh wow - I have never met anyone else who can't bike. Solidarity!

[skuf.livejournal.com]

I have poor balance, too, but being Danish, you learn to bike from a very early age, so I've learned to balance well on a bike, at least :o)

[springwoof.livejournal.com]

the Spouse and I are taking yoga classes together. (did you know that yoga was a warm up exercise for an Indian martial art that was a precursor to kung fu? Spouse thinks that's way cool.) What I like about yoga is that it's really challenging at any level--certainly at my level, but my instructor regularly says stuff like "this pose is always difficult for me". But at the same time it's difficult, I can see the gradual, gradual, incremental progress... and I can also see that while the Spouse (who is in way better shape than I am) can do a lot that I can only take the first tiny baby step towards, he also has difficulties in some of the poses that are relatively easy for me.

Partner yoga poses are also fun! Our instructor showed us some poses that you can only really do with someone you trust a whole lot. (also you get kindof tangled up together) ::grin::

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Whoa. A warm-up?! Imagine how challenging something would be if yoga was a warm-up for it.

[springwoof.livejournal.com]

oh yeah! We watched a special on The Fitness channel on it (the Indian martial art--sorry, I forget the name of it) and it was really awesome. and darned impossible looking! The moves those folks made...well, let's just say that they needed to be strong and incredibly flexible, which, of course, you get from yoga...

[sobelle.livejournal.com]

I *miss* my yoga classes out west... my teacher was into ~fitness~ yoga, Ashtanga... and by the time I'd be through with the class my endorphins were sky high and it was bliss...

I've been back here in the verdant hills of the Ozarks for over a year now and haven't found a replacement... and sadly enough can't be arsed to actually do my routine by myself... lazy slob that I am... although I discouraged myself by growing a belly in the intervening months that is getting in the way of my poses... stupid belly... stupid mouth that won't shut... stupid owner of both...

That said, yoga is such a great thing for my flexibility and cardio-vascular system... maybe I can convince stupid foot to kick stupid ass into finding a class nearby...

Good luck to yours from all my stupid parts!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Belly is a barrier for all sorts of things, I'm finding, and I'm naturally belly-enhanced. Oh well!

This comment reminds me of the old Peanuts cartoon where Snoopy is jogging and all his body parts are complaining ("Well, how about the feet? Nobody ever feels sorry for the feet." "Feet get all the credit; it's us knees that are really doing the work"), and eventually he says, "Who ever said long-distance running was lonely?"

[julia-fractal.livejournal.com]

Yay you for trying yoga! And feeling taller afterwards is definitely a good sign :)

I've been doing it for 8 months and I'm still sore after each and every class! The great thing about yoga is that there is no standard. It doesn't matter if your heels don't reach the floor in downward dog or your chest doesn't touch your knees. As long as what you're doing is safe and challenging for you, then you're doing it right. And you'll be surprised at how much deeper you can go into a pose if you just keep breathing and holding the pose.

Try hot yoga (doing yoga in a sauna) if you get a chance. The heat makes your muscles super-flexible, although having sweat coming out of every pore makes it difficult to hold your own body parts :)