Week One- Exploring Yoga

When pondering how to start my workout blog, I considered the three components of a workout as introduced to me by my coach- the warm up, the workout itself, and    the cool down. Warm ups usually are intended to get the blood flowing while also loosening up the body, essentially priming it for whatever the workout is. A good warm up is crucial to avoiding injury and  performing at capacity. With this in mind, I thought that my first challenge should be a warm up in of itself that will give me insight to help prepare for the other workouts. That is when it occurred to me that the perfect challenge to start with would be to lay out the mat and  crank out some yoga.

Yoga is an ancient Indian tradition that has been practiced since roughly the 5th century B.C.E., and  includes a chiasma of physical, mental and  spiritual practices that vary across multiple branches. While the westernized version of yoga tends to focus on the physical aspects, the original intent of yoga was to give practitioners access to Samadi, which loosely translates to “a trance like state where the mind is surrounded by absolute reality”. It is because of this that the tradition grew to become very important to Hindus, as they hold the belief that life is in illusion that must be escaped. With the nature of this blog paired with my personal belief that spirituality is bullshit in mind, I focused on exploring the more physical aspects, which tend to include vigorous tests of one’s core strength, flexibility and  balance.

Much to her joy, I used my exploration of yoga as an opportunity to chat with my mom. My mother is a message therapist who got her yoga teaching license when she moved to Oregon in 2014. I called her and  asked if she knew of any good yoga routines that were suitable for beginners looking for a quick and    easy sample. Much to my dread, she said that that attitude was automatically going to prevent me from the authentic experience, and  that the best way for me to go about it would be for her to talk me through as she would for a class. I rolled my eyes, and  then agreed.

We decided that I would FaceTime her as soon as I woke up Sunday morning and that she would give me something of a morning stretch. A woke up at around nine, laid down a blanket and  contacted her so we could start. After begging her not to make me Ohm, we begin with the body bending. She had me start with what is called a sun salutation, which is a series of stretches that seemed to really stretch out the lower back and  groin areas. After this she asked me where I felt the most stiff, and    I indicated that it was my hips and knees and  we proceeded.

The more specialized stretches were not nearly as common as those that I saw in sun salutation, and  were much more demanding. There was one stretch (double pigeon) that I did not have the flexibility to even properly get into the position for, so she had me do one that seemed a lot worse but was oddly easier to get into (Half Pigeon). After the shitty stretching, we finished the routine with some v sits and planks for core work, and  then finished with another sun salutation.

While I certainly was not enlightened, I found that the stretching was more pleasingly difficult then I would have thought. At one point I was sweating, which I did not even think was possible outside of hot weather, cardio and    fevers. The fact that it was as difficult as it was for me signaled that I need to stretch more often, especially before other workouts.

The man above is sitting in double pigeon. Looks easy, right? Should be if your legs are not three foot long bamboo shoots.

Half Pigeon looks awful but is oddly easier then it’s cross legged cousin.

V- sits are unpleasant and  require both core strength and   some degree of flexibility.