#Microblog Mondays: Making Friends With Yoga

Yoga is one of those things that I usually prefer to do alone: in my TV room, in front of one of my many DVDs that I probably know by heart now, wearing nothing but shorts and a sports bra, with no one to witness my excellent form, my complete faceplant, or the way that bridge pose or shoulder stands make my bosom suffocate me. 

My best friend loves to go to a yoga studio, in part because she found one near her that offers both sweaty yoga and relaxing yoga, and this crazy thing called Yoga Wall where you can be upside down for most of the hour, and in part because she has three children and the time including the drive is a blissful minivacation (and usually the best time for us to have a phone conversation uninterrupted). 

The only time I went to a yoga studio was when I went to Fertility Yoga, which was lovely when it served its purpose and then it kind of soured yoga classes for me. Maybe if I didn't associate yoga classes with opening my hips and increasing pelvic bloodflow, maybe if I didn't associate yoga with a horrid class with a substitute instructor who told us to do an opening mudra over our uteruses and do a visualization where we did our best to persuasively invite our babies floating in the ether to come to us...which might have been powerful had it worked out, or had I not miscarried a couple of weeks earlier and was stymied as to why my invitation was always rejected, why I was continually stood up in this regard. Acupuncture has similarly been ruined for me because I associate it with the ability inability to make my uterus receptive to an embryo or two, or my ovaries capable of making embryos that didn't whittle away in the dish.

I don't intend to go back to acupuncture, and I never intended to go back to a yoga class, until a margarita-fueled conversation with a friend resulted in signing up for Buti Yoga at the same studio where I take tap classes. The video that explained this form of yoga was terrifying, filled with very earthy, half-naked women sweating and whipping their hair around and talking about unleashing their inner power. Some of that sounds good, but most of it looked a little overwhelming, and like I wouldn't be able to keep up...but at the same time I was really, REALLY drawn to it. 

Well, surprise, we signed up and we both showed up last Monday and IT WAS AWESOME. There were no bare midriffs and no sweaty hair-whipping. Just a small group of women, sweating it out and opening chakras and dancing and doing plyometrics and feeling a very primal connection to our bodies. It sounds like I've drunk the kool-aid, but it was a seriously invigorating class. And I kept up! Some things I cannot do (I have never even heard of this "flipping your dog" thing you can do to extend a three-legged dog), but I just modify and nobody cares. And everybody is sweating like a beast. It's my new favorite workout.

I was initially nervous to be in a yoga studio again, because I remember many a shavasana where tears just rolled down my cheeks and settled into my cleavage as we did our final meditation and everything was so focused on the miracle of getting pregnant, a miracle that just never panned out for me (for long, anyway). But it feels amazing to go get out of my comfort zone, to join the company of other women carving out time in their busy schedules for fitness of body and spirit, and to be a part of a supportive environment that has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with what my body can't do, but rather helping it to get stronger in ways I absolutely can control. 

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays, likely ones that actually are micro and not cheating like this post? Go here and enjoy!