I’m a yoga girl. Maybe not a Sanskrit-speaking, smell like incense, wear hemp clothing kind of yoga girl, but I’m a yoga girl.
My journey with yoga started a few years ago when I was undergoing several different kinds of headache treatments. I had tried Botox for migraine, anti-seizure IV infusions, high dosage anti-seizure pills, blood pressure pills, narcotic injections, and 4 neck surgeries. You name it, I had tried it. Except yoga. So when I discovered there was a lunch-hour yoga class offered at my corporate workplace once a week, I decided to give it a try. I was 30 pounds heavier, in a state of constant pain, miserable at my job, and looking for some kind of escape or distraction. I spent the morning before my first class Googling “yoga poses” so I wouldn’t look like a complete idiot in front of my coworkers. I figured the class would be focused on meditation and quieting the mind rather than movement and poses, just like I’d seen in the movies, which made me absolutely terrified. You see, I don’t sit still well.
At the end of that first class, I was all kinds of weirded out. There had been some tiny clanging cymbals, a long period of lying still on our backs at the end of class, and prior to that, a ton of hard lunges that we had to hold for what felt like eternity. My muscles were crying, my heart was racing, and you know what else? For the first time in months, I wasn’t 100% focused on my headache. For the first time in a long time, I was thinking about the rest of my body, and the challenges I had just faced, rather than the ongoing pain in my head. This, along with P90X, was going to become my distraction.
The same instructor that taught my first yoga class is now my dear friend and the yoga instructor at our studio. I have learned many things from my practice and from her, the most important things being:
1) To show gratitude for all things.
2) To embrace the journey.
3) To get upside down, even if it terrifies you.
4) That stillness is more important than movement for many of us.
5) That we move in order to quiet the mind.
6) We feed off of the energy of other people.
7) Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. Working on your weaknesses makes you stronger.
8) Coming to your mat is what makes you a yogi.
9) Everything we experience on our mat, we experience in our lives.
10) When things get harder, you’re getting better.
And it has been a journey for me. The key I think, looking back, has been my willingness to go back and try again and again. To not be weirded out and quit due to feeling out of my comfort zone. In fact, I think most people don’t enjoy their first yoga experience because of the deep introspection it gives to their lives.
So how is a yoga girl like me, who has come to love this practice that is “alternative,” handling the idea of PiYo hitting home DVD players in just a week?
Sunday, I went through over 8 hours of PiYo Certification, meaning I am knowledgeable on the program and am now able to teach it in a group exercise setting. Those who know me know that I am not a girl who enjoys choreography, or rhythm, but am someone who loves a good clock countdown or interval count when doing push-ups. To put it bluntly, going to a PiYo certification for an entire day was out of my comfort zone.
Which is exactly why I chose to do it. Those of you who follow me know that this is my year of Trying Something New. Specifically, things I think I will hate or find extremely challenging. PiYo fell into that category for me, so naturally, I chose to dig deeper and find out what all the hype is, and whether I’m for or against it.
When I went through P90X and Insanity certifications, I came away with an utter amazement and appreciation for the science that went into these programs and the wonderment of why and how they actually work. With PiYo, it’s a bit different. Rather than hearing phrases such as HIIT training or MAX interval training, or even Muscle Confusion, it’s much more simple. We hear everyday words such as “flexibility” and “strength.” I struggled initially, because I thought that this thing so weirdly named “PiYo” would attract people for flexibility, but not for the inner journey, which to me is equally as important. It made me angry to think that I believe in the power of yoga, and more importantly, the power of centeredness, but this program was going to ruin all of that and be a dancey, ballet-like version of something that only barely resembled yoga. My biggest fear was that people would fall in love with this new program and then self-declare themselves lovers of yoga when really, what they’re doing isn’t yoga at all. It’s avoiding the true reason and calling for yoga… the balance in the yin and the yang. This would be just the yang. Or so I thought.
So imagine the screaming going on in my brain when I saw the marketing for PiYo and saw the key phrase “Yoga for Rebels.”
‘Great,’ I thought. ‘Clearly, they don’t want me to be a fan of this program.’
But then I went through the Cert. I did hours upon hours of this thing called PiYo. While it wasn’t my usual vinyasa flow, and Katy Perry was involved, it also wasn’t bad. In fact, through listening to the statements of several others at the certification, I started to hear the same phrases repeated throughout the day:
“I love it. I tried a yoga class once and I couldn’t lay still. This is way more my style.”
“I like that you don’t stop moving.”
“This is hard! Is yoga this hard?”
And as I listened, I uncovered the awesomeness that is about to be PiYo. I discovered exactly what it is that changed my mind about the intention of this program. Most people would never be attracted to a yoga studio, or to try a yoga class. Heck, I Googled “downward dog” before my first class. But if they hear of this new format that they can do at HOME or in a group exercise class at a gym that’s centered around flexibility in a yoga-like way, they may try it. And you know what magic I anticipate coming from that? I anticipate people will fall in love with yoga without knowing that it’s yoga. They’ll fall in love with the way their body feels after being stretched, the way their mind is able to relax after they do, and the sense of tall posture and clearheadedness they have the next day. My hope is that PiYo will open the door to a world completely untapped and unknown so as to bring more people to the world that is yoga.
I don’t like to lie still either. I like to keep moving. But I have learned, through this journey I am on, that I must. And after hearing the buzz at PiYo Certification, I can tell you that I smiled every time I heard people speak of it as if it is this new concept in the world of exercise, knowing myself that it’s been around for thousands of years and yet so many have left it uncovered. They don’t like the smell of incense and the sound of oms, so they stay away.
I believe PiYo will uncover this for a world of people. And I believe a percentage of these people will go on to fall in love with the way they feel, and the strength and tone their body gets from it, and will go on to try a yoga class. They will dig deeper, and further into their soul. They will become more comfortable with their mat, and therefore, will become more comfortable with their life off of their mat. When they themselves discover this, they will find themselves. And that’s what yoga is all about. That’s when their journey will truly begin.
