Yoga for the Ignorant

The Friday class at my work gym rotates between either yoga or kickboxing, two totally different ways to relieve tension.  I have never done the yoga class before because I really didn't think I could do it and also because, before today, I didn't think I could get in a good calorie burn without loud music and lots of fast cardio.

Today my buddies and I headed down to the gym, preparing to get our punch-on, but when we walked into the group exercise room in order to stake out our places on the floor before changing, we discovered that the lights were dimmed and there was light, tinkly tinkly music flowing out of the speakers rather than the usual bumping hip hop.  As Pam, our instructor, confirmed that today was yoga, we looked at each other with doubt on our faces.  I'm glad I didn't have much notice of the change because I probably would have backed out and hit the treadmill instead of shrugging and saying, "Okay, let's try this."

I walked into the room in my tennis shoes and socks, but when I looked around, everyone was taking their shoes off.  Okay, at this point you probably are gathering the severity of my yoga ignorance.  I took off my shoes but kept my socks on until my friend Marianne, who's not yoga-ignorant, explained that it was better to take off socks so you wouldn't slip on the mat. So, I yanked those off too, thinking ironically that had I been better informed, I could have saved myself the ten minutes I spent this morning trying to find a matching pair of clean gym socks.

As I sat on the mat waiting for class to start, the tinkly music lulling me already, I figured that the class would be good for stretching, but there was no way I was going to burn calories.  Yes, I was that yoga-ignorant, but I quickly learned a few things.

First, yoga is no joke.   I worked up a sweat almost to the degree of my Wednesday Step class.

Second, I can do yoga!  My year of faithful exercise has created a body that is flexible, balanced, and that has one heck of a set of muscles that can do almost every pose in the routine. It was one of those wonderful times where my body surprises me that I am simply able to do something.  These are the moments that make up my momentum to move forward on my path, the wonderfully addictive little experiments.
  
Third, it might take me a while to be able to get into the whole meditative state of yoga.  Today my Transformation team mates and I were on the back row of the class giggling at each other as we twisted ourselves new ways.  No amount of mood music or low lighting could keep my chuckles away and for some reason I couldn't help myself from wanting to make corresponding animal sounds from the names of the poses.  Coming up into Prone Cobra I just had to hiss.  Then when Pam instructed us to get down low into our runner's lunge, I wanted to sing some Lil' John ("let me see you get low, you scared, you scared"). 

Surprisingly we didn't get kicked out of class and the best part part came at the end when we got to lay on our backs and relax ourselves all the way down to our tows.  It was a great way to end a hard exercise week where we've banged our bodies through 5K training, Step class, a killer workout in the heat with Jeff and Marisa, and Jeff's torturous 100/20 rep strength training combos.   Yes, my Pigeon pose was more like Dead Buzzard on the Side of the Road, but I realized today just how strong all these muscles that I've been building really are....I'm hooked!