Yoga Found Me

A week or so ago, my BFF mentioned she started going to a yoga studio again.

“Would you like to go”? she asked me.

I hadn’t been to a studio since COVID. 

I have practiced some—asanas here and there at home, mostly restorative or yin yoga to stretch at night. But I hadn’t been in community to practice. 

So, I went. 

And as I sat in the dimly lit studio with a dozen people, soft music playing, and the smell of incense in the air, I thought, “Hello, friend!”

I don't know if I was saying hello to yoga or to myself. 

Practicing felt so familiar, comfortable, and so much me. 

But this time, my body was different. 

I’ve spent the last five years mostly sitting at a desk. I have a torn labrum in my left arm from hiking, and tennis elbow in both arms from 15 years of competitive play. I also seem to have a bit of plantar fasciitis, tendonitis in one ankle, and creakier joints.

Yoga was so much easier before all that. 

As I moved through different poses, I laughed at myself. I was no longer nearly as graceful as I was a decade ago. I couldn’t jump to standing from a downward dog anymore or wrap my arm around my knee in Ardha Matsyendrasana.

And I was nervous to try a handstand.

That was unusual—when I was a kid, I used to watch TV upside down. I have always loved inversions. But these days, I’m more aware of the important job my neck holds.

Still, I found joy in connecting with a practice that I have done for over 30 years. 

I remember my first yoga class ever—I was in college, about 20 years old. I sat with my legs in a V on the floor, and thought, “This is way too slow for me.” 

And, “Yoga is boring.” 

I did not know how to relate to it yet. 

A few years later, I signed up through Cambridge Center for Adult Education for a Kundalini yoga class with one of my dear friends from college. Kundalini combined not just yoga postures, but breathing and chanting and singing. It was held at a Shaker school and was taught by a guy dressed in all white with a turban wrapped around his head. I remember two things from those classes: How to do breath of fire, and that if you have a bad cold, you can sauté an entire head of garlic and then eat it, because that is what my instructor said he did.

Kundalini was faster, edgier than that first yoga I tried—it felt more productive.

In my 30s, I found Ashtanga and then the original hot yoga. In both, you did the same poses each time, so it was easy to develop muscle memory. Class became less about listening to an instructor for what to do next and more about sinking more deeply into myself as I did the poses.

Both were hard practices.

Like, really hard. 

Ninety minute practices. And the original hot yoga was done in a 105° heated room, where you really sweat. 

I eventually fell off from doing that series because of my shoulder injury and then tennis elbow, both of which should be able to be healed through the practice. But if you can't do the yoga without pain in order to be healed by it, it's easier just to stop and do something else. 

And then COVID happened so I stopped going.

But now, I have been back to this new studio a half dozen times. 

Even without my BFF.

And one Saturday morning, toward the end of class, the teacher said, “We have time for one more backbend. Feel free to do another Bridge, or go into Wheel if you would like.” 

I decided to try Wheel. 

Urdhva Dhanurasana.

This is a full backbend, standing on your hands and your feet. When completed successfully, it looks like an upward-facing bow.

I did it. 

I made it up there.

But I could feel a weakness in my shoulders that I didn’t used to have. 

A weakness in my resolve.

And tears came to my eyes.

There I was, in yoga class, upside down, in Wheel, quietly sobbing.

I don’t know if I was crying because I couldn’t do it as well as I used to, or if I was sobbing because I was in it. 

My body remembered it.

I once wrote a poem that was titled, “This Body Remembers Every Dance It Has Ever Done.” Perhaps that’s why I was crying. 

I remember them all.

Tchich Nhat Hanh said, “Your body is your first home. If you cannot make peace with your body, you cannot make peace with yourself.”

Going back to an old practice is like visiting a member of your family you haven't seen in a long time. You may not name it, but both recognize that you are older. You can see that each of you are wrinklier, perhaps even a bit heavier. At minimum, you’re probably not carrying your weight in the same places.

But you still can find the you that you are in that meeting place.

Sometimes, returning to the things we once loved is like finding a part of ourselves we never knew we lost.

What dance do you remember? 

Or what practice did you have in your life once that you wouldn't mind going back for a little visit? 

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