I Cuss During Yoga

I’ve been practicing yoga instead of weight lifting these past few months. With weight lifting, I tend to do too much, like I have to prove something. And I was getting to the point where I would need to actually buy some equipment rather than just use the rickety bench a cousin left over when he stayed with us for a bit. I’d have to buy a squat rack, and I didn’t want to have to try and lug that down into the basement where my Deadlift Dungeon resided.

Yoga doesn’t make me feel like I have to prove anything. And I don’t have to buy expensive equipment to keep improving. Yoga is just as intense as weight lifting and yet far more chill. In these Uncertain Times©, chill is what my soul craves. So every morning after feeding the animals, I roll out my mat and pop on a YouTube yoga video. Adriene Mishler is the host of the channel Yoga with Adriene and I really like her. She’s bubbly, energetic, and yet she’s chill at the same time. I come away from her lessons feeling strong and yet relaxed. It’s good exercise, and it doesn’t feel like I’m being punished.

But if you observed me following along with the videos, you would think that I hated her.

Adriene: Now meet me in Boat Pose.

Me: *visibly shaking as I hold my legs and try not to fall backwards*

Adriene: Good! Let’s heat it up. Extend one leg out long and bring the other in towards your chest for some Yogi Bicycles!

Me: Seriously?

Adriene: Now speed it up and welcome that heat. If you feel a shake, that’s your prana. Just use your breath.

Me: Oh my god, fuck your breath. *collapse*

But at the end of the video, I feel good for having done my best. And her 30 day yoga journeys are both challenging and easy enough to keep doing every day. The videos tend to be between twenty to thirty minutes long and that’s something I can easily schedule time for.

I’ve noticed some improvements in my body. My legs and arms are still strong as hell, but my core is getting stronger too. Mostly, it’s helped me stretch out my hip flexors, which suffer from all my time spent sitting at a desk. My balance, which was practically trash, is slowly improving too. Her videos help me maintain all around fitness.

There are lots of different types of yoga. I don’t really know the difference. There’s something called Hatha. Maybe I’m doing Hatha? I know it’s not Bikram. That’s the one where the room is hot and sweltering and you get all sweaty. It’s supposed to make you extra flexible or something. But I won’t go to the gym because there’s COVID outside, and I’m not about to run up my heating bill. The polar vortex was expensive enough. I’m not sure what Adriene teaches. And I’m not about to get into an argument about what “real” yoga is, or that it’s been appropriated by white women who think they know something about chakras.

I just know I look forward to the next video and cussing out Adriene when she tells me to keep a softness in my face while I wobble precariously in a crescent lunge. Seriously. How am I not supposed to clench my jaw when I go from that to plank pose and back to downward facing dog and…

But now it’s time to lie on the floor in Corpse Pose. I did it. I made it through another day and I’m so glad for it. Namaste, Adriene. And thank you for doing what you do.