I’ve always hated yoga. When I was in my early 20s, it didn’t seem like a “real” workout to me, so I rarely did it. When I moved to New York City for my first job, everyone seemed to be doing yoga, so I gave it another try, but always felt like an imposter. I couldn’t touch my toes, and stepping forward into a lunge would take me at least three steps, plus the assistance of my hands. And don’t even think about getting me to jump back into chaturanga.
Then I hit 30, and my relationship with exercise started to change. I began to listen to my body, taking more rest days and not beating myself up if I missed a workout. While lifting weights was (and still is) my favorite gym activity, I started to notice that my body wasn’t recovering quite as well as it had in the past. The tightness in my hamstrings and hips worsened, and I developed a hip impingement. For months, a little voice in the back of my head said, “You need to do more regular yoga.” So early this year at age 33, I decided to do yoga every single day for a month. The goal? To develop a consistent practice that would improve my flexibility so I could keep weightlifting injury-free.
[See: 8 Lesser-Known Ways to Ruin Your Joints.]
I choose three different studios in order to try a variety of yoga types. One with a traditional blend of vinyasa flow, spiritual teachings and melodic kirtan chants; one hip-hop yoga studio for a heated class with candles and pulsating beats; and one “enlightenment studio” offering a variety of yoga classes, dharma teachings and guided meditations. (Full disclosure: The studios comped my classes because they knew I was writing this piece, so I was lucky to skirt the financial cost of the commitment. Still, you can do a 30-day challenge on a budget by taking yoga classes included in your gym membership, looking for “community” classes that tend to be donation-based, downloading a free app like Nike Training Club or streaming free or cheap videos from websites like Daily Burn or DoYogaWithMe.com.)
Here’s what happened next:
Day 1: Hip Hop and Lots of Sweat
I had been dying to try Y7, a local hip-hop yoga studio, ever since I found out that hip-hop yoga was a thing. It was my first time trying heated yoga and, despite my fear of getting overheated and embarrassing myself, I enjoyed the hot room. That was until I emerged and realized my hair (along with the rest of me) was soaking wet. For a girl who only washes her hair once a week, a daily dripping wet sweat sesh was not going to fly.
Day 2: “My flexibility sucks.”
I headed to Three Jewels, the enlightenment studio, for an early morning hatha class. My lack of flexibility was glaringly apparent as we did a series of seated forward folds. As I attempted to fold forward, I could barely keep my legs straight, let alone touch my toes. I got frustrated with myself, so I gave up and lay in child’s pose. On the plus side, my hair was completely dry afterward.
Day 5: Discovering Restorative Yoga
After four days of downward dogs, planks and chaturangas, my body was in need of a restorative class. Restorative yoga is passive practice that uses props like blocks and blankets to open up tight muscles, relieve stiffness and encourage total relaxation. Aka bliss. But a restorative class is so much more than a rest day. It helps us “return to the original function that the body is born with — one that life takes us so far away from,” says Stacey Brass-Russell, a certified health and life coach and one of the co-founders of Yogamaya, where I took my restorative class. In other words, it helps counteract the cumulative effects daily living, stress and injuries have on how our body functions physically, emotionally and energetically.
[See: 9 Misconceptions About Yoga.]
I immediately saw a parallel between restorative yoga and my work as an intuitive eating coach. Both practices work to reacquaint us with how we move and eat in our most natural state. On this day, I started to realize that yoga was so much more than just a workout.
Day 8: “I’m actually enjoying this.”
I can’t remember the last time I’ve worked out more than three or four days in a row, so I was sure that by this point, I’d be ready for a break — if even just for the sake of time. But eight days in, instead of dreading my daily class, I found myself looking forward to it.
Day 10: Learning Patience
My instructor said to our class, “Yoga is a process, so have patience and be gentle with yourself.” I had been feeling frustrated with my inability to do certain poses, but from here on out I began to make a conscious effort to be gentle with myself, and found that it allowed me to push myself further than I ever imagined (see day 18).
Day 12: Getting Grounded
The word “grounded” is often thrown around, but I’ve never been quite sure what people meant — until now. At the end of class on day 12, as I lay in savasana, I had the sensation of sinking into the earth. My limbs were heavy, my mind was (mostly) clear and I felt completely relaxed. I carried that feeling with me throughout the rest of the day.
Day 15: Finding My Flow
Midway through week one, I realized I had been doing upward dog incorrectly (thighs should be off the mat. Whoops!). I also learned that the transition from plank to upward dog to downward dog is made by “flipping over” the toes. Try as I might, I could not get this transition right. Until day 15. My toes began to feel more flexible and, for the first time in my life, I felt like I was actually flowing through a yoga sequence — toe flip included.
Day 18: Facing My Fears
I have a longstanding fear of being stuck in an upside-down pose, so whenever an instructor would start to cue any type of inversion, I’d retreat into child’s pose. Day 18 was no different, except this time, my instructor requested that everyone try a shoulder stand two extra times. So, I pushed back up and tried again. This time it felt different, lighter. And, on my second attempt, I landed the pose. I’ve since signed up for an inversion class that I’m genuinely excited for.
Day 25: Pushing Myself
I’ve traditionally avoided advanced pose variations, making excuses to myself about why I can’t do them. But as I headed into week four, I had a change of heart and tried. Did I hit all the poses? Not even close. But I got further than I had before, and started to feel more and more confident in my body’s abilities.
Day 28: Coming Full Circle
As we moved into position to do a series of seated forward folds, my usual frustration with my lack of flexibility began to set in (see day 2). But it quickly subsided. As I folded over my legs, I was able to grab my toes, then my feet. I sat there in disbelief as we held several variations of the folds and I continued to get deeper into the stretch. Flexibility improvements — check!
[See: 6 Exercises Women Should Do Every Day.]
Day 30: Trying It on My Own
While I originally planned on doing a few classes per week along with a few yoga sessions on my own, I ended up enjoying the classes so much that I did 29 of them in a row. I didn’t think that I would do justice to yoga if I did it by myself; I didn’t feel like I knew enough. So on the final day of my month-long yoga journey, I decided to give a solo practice a try. While on vacation, I set up my mat outdoors in the Florida sunshine and, for the first time in my life, flowed on my own. No watch, no timer, no video to follow. Just me, my breath and my mat. Up until this point, I still considered myself just “playing” at being a yogi; but today, for the first time, I truly felt like one.
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I Never Liked Yoga. Then, I Did It for 30 Days Straight originally appeared on usnews.com
