What Yoga Means to me?

I love the feeling I get when I do yoga, whether it is in the house as part of my sporadic attempt at daily practice or in the class at the gym.  The feeling of being me, centered, chilled, relaxed but challenged.  I find that yoga is the answer to a busy life and sometimes when I have being having problems only the thought of getting to class has kept me sane.  It is the only class I feel is a treat rather than a chore.

I always feel better after a yoga class, calmer more relaxed, stronger and more able to tackle life and its challenges.  I feel connection to the people in the class even though I may not know their names, we welcome newcomers and they become a part of the yoga family.

I have done many different types of exercise over the years with varied results, some were fun, some were hard most I did not stick to and I thought I was a failure when I gave up after only a few months.  I enjoyed, to name a few, salsa, belly dancing, various martial arts, gymnastics, swimming, hill walking, running and the many classes at the gym, I always gave up and started something else.  In my defense I have moved a lot, different regions and even countries but I always did some form of exercise even if it was only press ups and crunches in my bedroom.

I have always done meditation practice of some kind and yoga feels more like a physical representation of meditation than a form of exercise to me.  The irony to me is that even though I fell in love with yoga in the last four years, my regret is that I did not find it sooner but I did and did not recognize that it was what I was looking for, when I was seventeen (I actually fell asleep in the class).  I have found it now and I am prepared and eager to stick with it, I can see myself practicing yoga into my 90’s just like one member of our yoga group.