Learning to relax...

Those of you that read this blog know what a challenge I find it to relax.  This is one of the reasons that Yoga is so good for me.  It challenges me physically and mentally in a way that no other exercise does.

Before I ever learned about yoga, I thought it was a hippy dippy type stretching with a lot of OHMMMMMM noises.  So when we started doing it, I wasn't prepared for how physically challenging it is!

When I weight lift, it's the challenge of just pushing my muscles to the limit.  Often with gritted teeth and lots o' grunting.  And running - well that's a whole mind body complication of forcing your heart and legs and mind to all get on board and to do a sustained intense activity.

Yoga is so different then that.  It's the difficulty of letting your body go.  And often it involves statically sitting in positions where every muscle is screaming "MAKE IT STOP!" while you are supposed to just relax into it.

I never - in a million years - would have thought that Marc would do yoga with me.  But he is as much into it as I am.  We just finished doing Rodney Yee's Power Yoga.  There's a setting on the DVD that instead of having Rodney give you detailed instructions, he just lists off the poses.  "Left leg forward into a lunge - Warrior I - push-up position - upward dog - now downward dog"  Is an example. We've been doing yoga long enough that this is all we need.

So here we were in the living room with this playing and for an hour, we quietly went through the DVD, not saying a word to one another.  However, I was aware of his presence and we moved in absolute sync.  I was able to be fully in tune with my own body and concentrate on deepening myself into positions while still feeling completely and totally connected to Marc.  

It's something unlike anything else.  I cannot stress to you how much I recommend integrating yoga into your life - not only for physical fitness, but to get to know your body and mentally strengthen yourself!!