Honor Your Body (No Matter What)

Hello internets! I am coming to you live from Rachael and Andrew's house with Tarver! We came straight here from the Y and my first evar Yoga class! This post is a little bit about self-esteem, also about the tale of my first ever yoga attempts.

This is not the story of how I became a prenzel.

 Let's start at the beginning. Unlike the last group exercise class I attended,  I came into the room and there were only a few people there! There was an older lady! There was a man! I sat down next to a lady already curled up with her soles pressed together and I said "Hi! You look like you know what you're doing already!" And she smiled back (!) and said she took the first round of yoga classes but she wants to get better. Friendly!

The instructor went around and chatted with some people briefly. She asked if I had ever taken a yoga class before, and when I told her no, she smiled (again with the smiles!) and said "Good!"

She started the class by letting us know that we didn't have to go into any poses that hurt us or pushed us too far. And then she said,

"Always make sure you are honoring your body. Yoga is about honoring your body, not pushing it too hard."

Rachael: NOT honoring your body!

Rachael: I wanna jump with ladies! Body honor!

Seriously, I teared up a little. That's not a joke. It's possible that I had never ever thought about my body as something to be honored. Especially not when I spend most of my life feeling ashamed of my body, trying to cover it up, and feeling angry with myself.  When in reality, my body works pretty well. I don't even have tendonitis anymore! I can walk, I can dance minimally, I still fit in airplane seats and am maybe working on moving out of the "blob" phase!

Let's be real-- airplane seats aren't gonna get any bigger.
Actually, they'll probably get smaller.

Yoga class was actually at about the right speed for me. Some of the things were challenging, some felt easy, but most of the things felt about right. I have terrible "body memory," so I'm really glad I can take this 5-week class basically as many times as I want until I get to the next level. Again, my high school friends can attest to how painfully long it takes me to learn even the simplest of dance moves. So going really slowly was actually very helpful for me. 

I totally succeeded at this pose! 

I was just showing Andrew about my incredible failure at butt in the air pose or as Andrew calls it "Downward Facing Dog." Right Andrew? "CORRECT!" Actually, butt in the air pose was the only one that I completely failed at. The other ones actually went pretty well. Having the poses go pretty well made it possible for me to think about my breathing and looking contemplatively at my body. There are some pretty cool things about me, it turns out.

Cool thing #1, despite being quite large, it turns out I'm pretty flexible. I felt pretty good about that. Even though I was clearly bigger than the other people around me, I was bending and flexing without a problem.  Except for the ways my fat prevents me from bending (seriously, that's a real, awful truth), I could do almost all of the things at a good level of bendiness.

Cool thing #2, I'm not graceful, definitely not lithe or lissome, but I try really hard. I could easily continue to get bigger and bigger, sitting at home trying to get all the achievements on Civ 5.  But there I was, ridiculous arms and all, waving around and trying to stand still with everybody else. I mean, if I could equate myself to anything, it might be like, an elephant. Determined, good memory, smart-- but really, really not graceful and really really can't jump.

Elephants are totally majestic.

Nearing the end of the class, the teacher turned down the lights and we did some awesome cool down and breathery things. By then I had finally figured out how to do the breathing right and was feeling really peaceful and fantastic. Then, at the very end of the class, she leaned in a bow to us and said, "And to you all, I say, Namaste."

Okay, this is an Om and a lotus, but it's the kind of feeling I got from Namaste.

I understand this is apparently how all yoga classes end, but I was totally moved and touched by it. I, at the time didn't know what it meant, but somehow had the sense that it was something really important. At that point, I was feeling really peaceful and connected to myself. And of course, sentimental fool that I am, not even knowing what Namaste MEANS, I teared up a little bit. 

This is where my dear friends come into the picture, since they have a lot more knowledge on this kind of topic than I do. So I inquire:

"What does Namaste mean?"

Rachael reports that Namaste means "Peace, bitches." Andrew, her husband, shakes his head fondly and explains: "It means, I honor the divinity within you and you honor the divinity within me and when we do this we are one and the same."

So it turns out that's what yoga class is all about; learning how, you know, there's not so much that's bad about me or even my body. And the things that are less optimal are changing. So I'll be back at yoga class next week.