A surprising revelation: I like yoga

I'd be the first to admit that I always hated yoga. In high school, I thought it was pretentious. In college, I thought I wasn't built for it. And now, here I am, about to profess my love for something I used to genuinely think was ridiculous. (Oh Ignorance, you sly bastard. I keep forgetting I still have so much of you!) YOGA, you guys. My hippie-ness steadily increases the further I get into my twenties-- and I LOVE it.

But yes-- Yoga at 10am every Friday is starting look like my new personal version of church at 10am every Sunday. As far as habits go, this seems like a pretty sensible one to make.

The woman I'd most aptly describe as my new spiritual guide is named Vanessa. And she is a total genius.

I've always shied away from yoga because I'm inflexible, and most classes I've taken in the past have been populated by super-stretchy aspiring actresses and equally-stretchy German dudes, so I've gotten pretty intimidated and I don't generally enjoy myself. The class I started taking last week, though, added a very important ingredient to the regimen of simply too-hard-for-Carly poses: Spiritual Enlightenment. And not just like "close your eyes and focus your energy"-type spiritual enlightenment. Actual life wisdom in the form of yoga-inspired insight.

There's a ritual structure to these classes that appeals to me the way I'm sure church appeals to most people. Vanessa begins the class with a sermon of sorts-- anecdotal thoughts from her own life, followed by what she sees as the universally shared weekly energy state of, literally, humanity (even as physiologically obvious as: "it's getting colder, our lungs (which we all have) become slightly more dried out and brittle, I'll focus today on warmness and certain types of breathing). And it's never anything so hokey that I'm pulled out of the legitimacy of the practice-- which is AMAZING.

Today's sermon was an oddly-serendipitous analogy: Getting your computer fixed. Vanessa had recently taken her computer to the Apple store (like OH HEY I had to this weekend). They told her something in her computer was "corrupted," which meant her hard drive needed to be completely wiped clean (like OH HEY mine had to be). Our bodies and our souls oftentimes corrupted-- maladaptive schemas, incorrect posture, bad diet, hurtful belief systems-- some that we may not even know about. And when our body-computer stops working or isn't working as efficiently as it can, it's not as easy as it is with a computer to wipe the slate clean. But in the practice of meditation and realignment and all this great yoga-bullshit I'm starting to love, we gradually come closer to a clean slate.

And it's the effort that we put into the practice that makes the rewards all the more special. When you drop off your computer, come back a couple days later, and it's suddenly fixed, you lose that crucial, behavior-rewarding feeling of achievement. And it's a blessing in disguise that bodily and spiritual realignment is the pain-in-the-ass, sometimes-too-hard commitment that it actually is.

Another reason yoga class kicks ass: she talks about "honoring" your body in the most conversational way. And it's true. If you are stubborn to a pose (in the same way that you could be stubborn to a person's wishes) you are not honoring your body (or that person). It's really cool to make this realization when you have your heel in your face.

We were asked to envision ourselves taking items off a table throughout the course of the 1 1/2-hour class. By the end of the session, our table was to be cleared and totally au naturale. I came upon an interesting conundrum that I think actually gives interesting insight into my character: my table couldn't decide what it looked like. It alternated between a plain, unvarnished, rectangular blonde oak table-- very simple, very structurally solid-- and a varnished, maple, round table with artfully crafted legs-- very crafty and beautiful.

I'm still not that flexible, but it's nice to be humbled once a week. To be grounded into my own body and to feel like I'm chipping away at the over-calcification that plagues my hip-sockets. I feel like I don't always honor my body... so it's refreshing to get a taste of what it feels like to do so.