Yoga AKA Torture

Does this image fill you with peace?

I seriously would love to do that.  And looking at this picture of the beach and a perfect pose makes me a little bitter, I must admit.  Okay, a lot bitter.

I have two very dear friends (who shall remain completely anonymous) who are slightly older than me.  They have been dispensing advice to me and I have been mentally taking notes.  But now I have been trying to follow through with their advice and not just taking notes.

My husband loves to tease me that he can't wait to find my first gray hair (Stephanie will keep this from happening for a good long time. If you are in West Michigan, you should be booking her to do your hair too.).  But the thing is, I am obviously not getting any younger and I want to do all I can to make getting older easier instead of painful.

Enter yoga.

One of my anonymous friends has had back and neck pain.  She is slight in frame and skinny as can be, even if I do bring her cookies, dumplings and such.  The doctor told her she needed to try yoga because - get this - one of her side muscles had shrunk so much it was causing her entire leg to go numb.

How did this happen?  Because she, who plays softball with veracity and works to stay in shape, has a job that has her sitting for long stretches.  Her not stretching caused this problem.

I figured I may as well do yoga too to keep this from happening to me.

I rented a yoga video from the library (library's rock, people.  Embrace them!) and when all my family was far away at school and work, I tried yoga.

First of all, I do not get having my spine feel as though it has roots into the ground and my head is crown of light.  Once I got past that and tried not to snicker at their seriousness, we began the stretching.

I've always been flexible, I thought, and did not think the Yoga For Beginners would be too tough.

Ha.  Ha.

I started easy enough, but then they did some crazy-you-should-never-bend-this-way-pose and suddenly I am craning my neck to see the pose and trying to not get my nose too close to the stinky carpet (WHY do we have carpet?) and wondering if I will ever be able to get up from this position and sorta wishing Jake were home to help me if I break something.

I heard my body crack in many places.

I moved in many positions I did not know was possible.

And when they went in to corpse position, I sighed with relief for surviving.

My cat jumped on my tummy as I laid there, as if to laugh at me for doing a cat stretch at one point.

And this is beginning yoga.

The video instructor promised I would feel energized and at peace.  I felt sore all over my body and dug out the motrin.

I tweeted this....
I attempted yoga today. I think I heard the women in the video laughing at me. I do not feel amazing like they promised...try super sore.

This response to that tweet totally cracked me up.....

@life4boys I have tried yoga videos so many times and it is terrible. I did not feel the air pour into my inner soul cleansing my body.

At our Praise and Coffee online night, I kept moving positions.  Every way I sat hurt.

Yoga is painful.

But, it did stretch me and if I am that sore I must be that inflexible and if I am that inflexible I may be on the way to numb limbs like my friend so I figured I had better try the video again.

So this Saturday morning I tried again.  I wanted to have it done before The Pioneer Woman's show came on.  My husband was leaving for the day, S1 was gone to a friends, S2 was going with Daddy and the two little ones were doing bike races.  I figured I could just get the warm up done while my husband left and that would get me done with the torture in time to drink coffee and watch how to make chocolate cake.

Except my husband found me entertaining so he kept coming back in to see how I was doing.  I would be in the middle of some downward dog type pose or some funky bird pose and he would have all sorts of smart comments for me.

I recalled how my friend had just told me that I should NEVER do yoga in front of Jake and I had solemnly agreed.  And here I was, the very next day, doing yoga poses in front of my husband - who was suppose to not be home, I might add.

The boys just thought I had gone crazy.  They would walk in, look at me, shake their heads and go back outside.

Humiliating.

And when I was done I found the time for the Pioneer Woman's show had moved.  Perfect.

And the second time doing yoga is just about as painful as the first time.

The things I will have to do to have a good, movable life when I am ancient old - however, even when I am ancient old I will be WAY younger than my now starting to go gray husband and will be able to dance a jig around him if I continue this regime.  At least that is my evil plan.  It keeps me motivated.

And once my husband reads that evil plan, he will start doing yoga and will do it with ease, I am sure.  Men are evil that way.

If anyone has any advice for me, please let me know.  Have a video you really like? Pass the title or isbn number on my way.

If you don't hear from for a long time, I did some weirdo pose, my spine went CREAK instead of "relaxing" and I am stuck in a knot in my living room.  Bring help, motrin and coffee.