Inspired by a former Computer-Assisted Reporting professor I had, I signed myself up on a few key interest Google Groups as a way of being involved in a larger dialogue about things like yoga, youth crime, and Jason Mraz. I don’t always read the messages sent to my inbox, but yesterday I poked around the yoga group to see what people were saying. Typically this group seems to be geared towards people who have studied yoga in India for like a decade, and I often don’t understand a word they write. (One day I must remember to look up what ayurveda is, that word gets thrown around a lot) Yesterday a gentleman shared his positive experiences stretching in the morning, and soon after members posted their similar experiences. Some were corporate execs whose only sanity salvation was their morning yoga practice.
I thought that sounded pretty good: Waking up early, doing 20 minutes of yoga and then having this super power energy that carries you through the day and makes all stress melt away once you return to your deep breathing. It went well this morning and after I remained focused on not falling back asleep, it was enjoyable. It is now about 11:00 and I guess you have to do more yoga or every day for it to make a difference because my face wants to fall on my keyboard, my eyes seek the camouflage of sunglasses to close behind and if one more person asks me to pass my stapler I am going to throw it between their eyes and tell them to get their own.
I’ll try it again tomorrow and maybe Saturday, minus the waking up early part. I’ll let you know if I ever tap into the secret powers of yoga energy in a significantly large and impressive way, like my fellow yoga Google group members.
There is certainly an advantage to daily stretches. I’ve always been blessed with flexibility so stretching has never been strenuous. It makes me feel so good to stretch while watching TV at night (that way I’m not being a couch potato), and try to get as close to the floor and as flat as possible. It really feels good. I never feel worse for doing it, I’m told it can make you up to a half an inch taller when done regularly and hey- maybe if I keep it up I’ll still be doing the splits at 80. That’d be something to impress the toothless wonders of my retirement home with. If I can offer any substantial piece of advice to the reader reading this, it would be to always roll your shoulders back and mind your posture. This makes it near impossible to hurt yourself when stretching or doing yoga (though I know there are those special ones out there who will still manage to).