Quote:
Originally Posted by clvquilts
Yesterday, I did an hour and a half yoga class with my sister and decided that yoga is just not for me. I wasn't sore or felt the stretches that the instructor was talking about. Plus there was just too much time at the end just lying there breathing. I guess it's relaxing for some people, but if they didn't have artwork on the ceiling for me to look at, I would have been really bored.
I like your being honest about this. I've sometimes thought that not enough people admit that they don't really care for yoga or that they believe it's overrated. Yoga is one of the sacred cows of our time & often it feels like one is not allowed to criticize yoga publicly, anymore than one is allowed to dislike puppies & kittens.
That being said, for me, just now, yoga is a much-needed life line.
This because I am, in general, a driven person, full of self-reproach when I am not actively working on something or following a to-do list. When I am in yoga class, my "to do" is just to follow the sequence of movements, to think only of what my body is doing at that very moment. Particularly during the relaxation phase at the end. It's the only time (other than lying down to sleep) when I tacitly give myself permission to relax & think of nothing & to stop my mind from chattering at me.
Also lately I am always feeling tense, poised for flight or self-defense, particularly in the morning, when two consecutive cups of coffee leave me shaky and almost visibly vibrating. Anything physical focuses me & gives me some release from being continuously on edge.
The other thing is, although I'm in the gym every day, I tend to live from the neck up, and not think much about the rest of my body. It sort of evaporates. (It's why I was able to live with being dangerously obese for years. Because I pretty much forgot about my body for extended periods of time, or didn't see it as it was, or didn't care much about it.) With yoga, I'm asked to focus on carrying out certain movements and I am thinking about different body parts or zones, and how they're feeling, and what their range of motion is. (For instance, I never knew how tight my hips and calves were till I found out which yoga poses really challenged me. This also confirmed how unsteady my balance is, and that it is a matter of mind as much as body.) So during yoga practice, my body gradually comes into focus for me, rather than being blurry & dissipated or forgotten about, as it is during the rest of my day.
What I mean is, yoga treats certain disorders of the mind & soul with which I am afflicted. Does this make sense to you? I did want to explain what I see in it, but as I said, I can understand why someone without my issues would be bored by it, or even annoyed by some of the platitudes that surround it.