So Day 1 brought with it an introduction to yoga. And not just any ol' kind of yoga, but hot yoga. The Girl and I went for an early-morning session in Santa Monica. I won't lie; I was a little nervous about the whole thing. I'm not the most physically fit individual on the planet, and everything I'd read and heard about hot yoga seemed to indicate that first-timers are guaranteed to pass out or, if they're lucky, simply vomit.
Now, in the past I would've made up some kind of excuse to avoid putting myself in that type of situation--"I have to wash my hair" or "I have to sit around my apartment with the blinds shuttered and mediate on my navel." But something about The Girl inspires me to push the boundaries of my comfort zone, especially when it comes to things that challenge my body. And so I stepped up to the plate for some hot, hot yoga action.
If you've never done hot yoga, it takes place inside a room that's heated to somewhere around a jillion degrees. The stated purpose of the heat is to promote sweating (which serves to detoxify the body) and to allow for increased flexibility in joints and muscles. However, when you add intense heat to an already intense experience--twisting and contorting the body in new and unusual ways--a natural and collateral effect is nausea and dizziness. For me, everything came to a head at around the halfway mark of the session. Suddenly the heat became overwhelming and my body wanted to throw up the white flag.
But I couldn't leave the room. Not that participants are prohibited from leaving, but I'd promised myself that I'd stay the whole session to maximize my first yoga experience (plus I wanted to earn brownie points with The Girl--hashtag egotastic!). So after taking a knee through one set of poses, I took a deep breath and let mind overcome matter.
I'd read somewhere that the power of yoga lies in its ability to let you to focus your mind in a way that allows your body to do amazing things. And with that in mind, I turned my focus from the outer to the inner, disengaging my mind from the physical discomfort of the whole experience and focusing instead on the restorative process occurring to my body in invisible ways. I won't be so bold as to say that I've unlocked the secret of thousands of years of Eastern thought (not even close), but my refocusing was able to prevent me from passing out or throwing up--no small victory.
Today, I'm sore as all get out in areas and muscle groups that I didn't even realize I had, but it's a good kind of sore. It's amazing that the body can be so taxed by an endeavor that is so peaceful. A far cry from what is traditionally considered exercise in the Western world, activities based on aggression and the volatile explosive potential of the human body. In retrospect, I think I've never been a very active person because those types of activities don't really suit my personality (plus I'm probably the least-coordinated person on the entire planet). However, with yoga, I think I've found something active that I can enjoy without feeling like I'm completing a distasteful chore. More than anything, I love the mind-body-spirit element to it. Namaste, everyone.
--KM
"Honor your edge."
No comments:
Post a Comment