I mentioned in one of my very first posts that one of the
keys to getting more exercise was finding some fitness activities that I
actually enjoyed, and yoga is one of them.
As an athletically-uninclined child, my parents still put me
in a variety of lessons to make sure I got regular exercise and became a “well
rounded person” (their words). The activity I was most terrible at, and somehow got worse at as I got older, was modern dance. Jazz, tap, ballet, I was just
not good. I could never straighten my arms just so, I didn’t have the natural
flexibility for high kicks, and I couldn’t remember to keep smiling while
concentrating on putting my body into what felt like unnatural
motions. When I was 13, my teacher made it clear to my parents that I was not
cut out for the competitive classes and should enroll in “recreational jazz.”
At the recital that year, my parents finally agreed I could quit dance lessons.
No doubt the sheer amount of non-talent on display in the rec jazz performance
finally convinced them that dance was not my calling.
(Screenshot from a video of my first tap recital)
All this to say – everything that my parents wanted me to
get out of dance lessons and I never did, I get out of yoga.
I was pretty late to the yoga game, but signed up for a
beginner class through the community association a couple years ago. I really
enjoyed it, and as I was still a grad student I also started taking advantage
of the classes available to USask students and staff at the PAC. These were
large, fitness-focussed classes though, and a couple times while following
along I put my body in a position that I shouldn’t have.
The thing that really changed my yoga life was discovering
the website YogaDownload.com. I much prefer being able to pick a class based on
the needs of my body on a particular day, and the instructors are absolutely
stellar. Because they aren’t live classes, the instructions and cues need to be
very clear, and there is always an emphasis on safety. For access to hundreds of classes, you can get a Groupon that works out to about $40 CAD/year, and the
classes can be fully downloaded to keep forever.
As a kid in the 90’s, yoga hadn’t really caught on yet in my
town, so there wasn't an option for me to try it instead of dance lessons. It's also not really something one thinks of as being a "kid-friendly" activity. But I often compare the two in my mind. The philosophy behind yoga would have
worked so much better for me. Instead of getting yelled at for not having
straight arms, I would have received better cues as to how to activate certain
muscles in order to get them straighter. Instead of failing a dance exam for
not being flexible, I would have been encouraged to do my best, and recognize
that even a small bit of improvement was great progress. And as for the smiling
– I love that yoga is just for me, not an audience!
Saskatoon has a ton of options for yoga classes (there’s
probably one available through your community association), but because I use
yoga partly for stress relief, I have no desire to do something that stresses
me out (driving) in order to get to it. This is mainly why my preference is the
online classes. I may revisit the community centre class again sometime because
I can walk there, but I’m perfectly happy using YogaDownload as I get more
familiar with the practice and improve my skill level.
(PS this is NOT a sponsored post, I am but a simple blogger with like 8 regular readers)
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