Just imagine the post title being sung by a bendy, exuberant Justin Timberlake a la SNL skits of yore. You really can't un-think it after that.
My introduction to yoga was about fifteen years ago at the Asheville, NC YMCA - I took a weekly flow class that was sometimes taught by a friend-of-a-friend. A few years later, after a move to the YWCA, I took a few classes there, though not with the same regularity.
Then came the long yoga drought of moving to Portland, going to the 24-Hour Fitness for a bit (which had their brand of yoga, but which also was a weirdly intense meat market for affluent, white, hetero singletons, so no thanks), moving into our home, setting up a home gym, getting hit by a car, rehabbing at the neighborhood gym (which also offers yoga, but my balance was complete shit for a very long time) and then finally. YouTube.
It's the perfect set up for me - I can do yoga any time I have a moment at home and the floor is reasonably clean. I can supine twist to my heart's content without fear of rogue flatulence. I'm not surreptitiously peering at other people, using their bendiness as a measuring stick against my own.
We live in a time of Ought to Know Better. We carry devices in our pockets that can answer just about any question we have. We know what needs to be done to maintain a happy, healthy body/mind/etc. But we still don't. And that's OK. It can take a while to find the perfect combination of accessibility, gear, adaptability, and synchronicity to get a fitness regime settled in. I think yoga might be That Thing for me.
This revelation didn't strike me over night. I'd say it took about three years.
It started with me just wanting to fall asleep more quickly. I'd been starting to use ASMR videos to knock myself out under a cascade of delicious tingles, but it felt like I could be doing more to get settled for sleep. I pulled up a quick search on "bed time yoga routines" and got two videos: one from Sara Beth Yoga, and one from Yoga with Adriene.
Sarah Beth Yoga's 15 minute bedtime yoga practice
Yoga with Adriene's 30 minute bedtime yoga practice
Over time, I expanded my cherry-picking practice to include their videos for spinal health, anxiety, bad moods, digestion... there's really quite an impressive library on both channels. Adriene has also been doing 30/1-day challenges since at least 2015.
Last January, I diligently took part in her "Yoga Camp" 30 day program until the night of the 14th. As part of my annual "birthweek" celebrations, I managed to get completely soused on several forms of alcohol during an "Asian Bar Crawl" (one Asian going to a few bars, not a survey of Asian bars). That night after making it safely home, I sprinted down the stairs in my birthday suit (as it were) to enter in my water intake for the day. Or at least I tried to run down those stairs. Sadly, my leg-eye coordination was impaired and I spectacularly cartoon slipped and landed full force onto my tailbone.
So I stopped doing yoga for a bit. Again. The pain was stunning and incredibly long lived.
Eventually, over the course of the last year, I've come back to a semi-regular yoga practice. I just finished day 18 of Adriene's new "Yoga Revolution" practice this morning. The program is starting to get to the "you probably won't be able to do this, but just breathe through the discomfort" bits. There might have been swearing. But I'm doing it. And I feel fantastic.
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