Workout of the Week: Yoga

Right after high school, I gained a lot of weight when I transitioned from the life of a physically active high school student to a lethargic college girl. The absence of sports and PE really took its toll on my body. I got back into working out in my early twenties to lose weight, and began experimenting with different workouts.

I had heard yoga was great for your body, and was popular among celebrities, so I decided to give it a try. I bought a book on yoga that described its history, as well as provided illustrations of asanas (yoga poses). I discovered that many of them were stretches that I had done in gymnastics classes as a child, and I started practicing them regularly.

Within a few months, I was just as flexible as I had been as a child! This was exciting to me! It doesn't take long to become flexible. It just takes consistency.

Although I had the stretching down pat, I didn't understand the breathing patterns that go along with yoga. I signed up for a live class, and was a little confused because most of the class was centered around respiratory exercises, and all the postures were extremely basic.

I continued to focus on my stretching, and didn't attend more yoga classes for a while. After I began teaching Zumba, my muscles became tighter and imbalanced. The few minutes of stretching I was doing after my workouts wasn't enough to counterbalance all the wear and tear that high impact aerobics was doing to my body, so I knew I needed to seek out more yoga.

I started doing yoga videos at home, and soon gained a deeper understanding of the yogic philosophy. The main goal of a yoga practice is to gain mastery over the mind. It's not easy to relax your mind and think of nothing. With consistent practice, I was able to start controlling my thoughts better.

Yoga became my sanctuary. I started going to classes again when a new yoga studio, Sutherland Yoga Studio, opened up in town. It was so much easier to leave my cares and worries at the door when I practiced in a group setting than when I did yoga at home. There was always a distraction: laundry, cleaning, the phone, or whatever. When I went to a class, the entire hour was focused only on my practice.

Even though I am a fitness instructor, I didn't want to teach yoga, because that was ME time. I didn't want to think. When I'm instructing, I have to constantly think about what comes next, while simultaneously helping others with their practice. I like to just DO yoga.