This morning I made it to Jennifer's 11am Inner Fire Flow class and celebrated my one thousandth yoga class at Inner Fire Yoga Studio. I have been.practicing yoga for 9 years now, so when you do the math, a thousand classes isn't that crazy. My practice is certainly no where near perfect-- it is simply practice. I start over again almost every time I step on my mat.
While I am not a very confident yogi, I have come a long way. I recall after about 5 years of practice, a teacher walking up behind me and shoving her hip into mine, pulling my arm up and pushing my thigh over to force me into triangle pose correctly. I imagined she was so tired of seeing me do the pose wrong, she finally forced me to do it right and it was like a yoga epiphany. Very few teachers will do that for you. My favorite teachers are the ones that do a good job of verbally describing where body parts are supposed to be or have a great music selection. Jennifer does both, so I intentionally picked her class to be my 1000th.
I love going to hot yoga for the heat, the stress relief of letting go and for the feeling of healing. 10 years ago a friend told me to do myself a favor and start doing yoga before I turned 50. It was the best advise anyone has given me for how to grow old. Hot yoga has cured my thyroid issues (doing Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee Pose and Rabbit pose), cured my carpal tunnel problems (doing Locust Pose, or Salabhasana), gotten rid of my bad BO (Kapalbhati breathing and sweating toxins out regularly), helps my back issues any time I have a flair up (spine twisting, triangle, and head to knee poses), prevents my plantar fasciitis from returning (head to knee poses, mountain, yin and other toe stretching), and cured my digestive irregularity (wind removing pose and more).
So what's next? I suppose I have another thousand classes to take in the next ten years. I am considering teacher training just to strengthen my own practice and possibly to have a part time job after I retire. I listened to Marianne Williamson on Oprah's Super Soul podcast this week and thought about how the universe (God), has paved my journey with so much grace. My yoga practice has helped me survive the roughest parts of my journey, not accidentally. I am so thankful for the classes I had on days when I was in pain, emotional pain or physical pain. I have always walked away feeling better, more whole and so grateful for the experience.
Comments