Yoga
My God I ache. I tried yoga yesterday for the first time. I’m mid-forties and run a bit (sort of shuffle about really) and thought I’d give it a go. Why? Well, partly out of curiosity and partly to help my body whilst operating deep behind the enemy lines of middle age.
Yoga I knew was going to be challenge. Look, I struggle to sit cross legged but I was up for giving it a go. The trouble is I spent nearly 20 years in the army where a warm up and cool down meant a quick toe-touch and a cup of tea. I think life of hard training and wanton neglect has taken its toll and my joints don’t take much punishment before they start to object loudly – I now get cramp in the middle of the night and that isn’t fair.
Sensibly, I had a good scout around youtube to find a course that looked about right. I happened upon Yoga with Adriene. Let me say now that she is good. She clearly knows her stuff. She doesn’t patronise. She talks like a normal person and didn’t put me off. In short, she’s a pro and quite easy on the eye. I gave it a go.
So, there I was yesterday afternoon pressing play on a 20 minute beginner session yesterday afternoon thinking “how hard can this be?” Well let me tell you, it was a total bastard. It looked so easy and do you know, some of it was….at the time. But my shoulders this morning were laugh-out-loud sore. I couldn’t pick up my toddler without making a silly, old-man sound. Washing my hair was odd, it felt like I was using someone else’s arms. Yoga did this to me. Yes that’s right, yoga.
I had another go today thinking a hair-of-the-dog approach might help. I couldn’t work out what was making the strange noise: my back, shoulders or the old floor boards. Wow it hurt. But this isn’t going to beat me. Adriene, you’re not going to beat me. I am going to do this.