Yoga Yoga! Yoga!

Having practiced Martial Arts for seven years, and being a gym rat, most of my fitness endeavors have been geared towards some form of rigorous workout, but recent circumstances have led to my need to take a break (for financial reasons, mostly) from my usual routine. One of the wonderful things I have discovered is that many local yoga studios offer an abundance of free classes to entice potential new students. So I decided in an effort to expand my repertoire of workout choices and give it a try. I discovered a local studio, very near to my home that offered a free week of the heated classes. Suffice it to say, I am not built like most of the uber skinny, flexible model types that one thinks of in a yoga class, in spite of my many years of ballet training in my younger years. As mentioned in a previous posting, even when I was a ballet dancer, I was not as flexible or naturally gifted as to become a professional, so my training was only able to take me so far. However, I have newly discovered the heated yoga classes, and am completely hooked! I have literally taken 5 classes in about a 4 day time span, and am enthusiastically in search of more classes...free ones, of course.

What I have discovered is that these workouts truly do inspire the mind-body-spirit approach to fitness I consistently endorse. The heated environment means you always break a good sweat and release toxins from your body, as well as maintaining a consistent body temperature to keep the muscles relaxed enough to go deeper into the poses. The flow and strength aspect gives a feeling that you are truly working out and not just lingering in a pose. And the meditative component calms the mind and allows you to really maximize the workout, in that, similar to the concept of what my Sinsei taught us in karate, you leave your problems at the door and really focus on the workout in the here and now, to reap the greatest benefits. My personal mantra has always been: "There is no problem in your life that does not look a lot easier to deal with at the end of a good workout." It is my personal belief that many issues such as depression (which I have myself suffered from) and other psychological and physiological maladies can be managed in a healthier manner, and without medications, if more people understood that principle of exercise. I do not have a degree in Biology or Psychology (other than that I minored in Physical Education in college) but these principles are widely studied and I can personally attest to the validity of them. I cannot say yoga is the answer to all of life's questions, but for me, for now, it is a very viable path.