I've played many sports, both club & varsity. I've taken up many athletic hobbies, tried all sorts of exercise regimes. but NOTHING humbles me as utterly and consistently as yoga. really makes you confront ur weaknesses & the blind spots you've been ignoring, physical & emotional
my first experience w/ yoga was as a college varsity athlete humoring my then-gf; I thought I'd get her to shut up about it & show off how strong I was. that didn't happen. instead I suffered thru a beginner lesson, barely able to do any of it, while the girls breezed thru it
never one to reject a challenge, I threw myself into it, trying to understand what it was all about & prove that I could get Good At Yoga as well. clearly I didn't know what I was talking about.
I ended up pretty adept at asana, but w/ time learned about the other limbs as well
I learned that the physical poses, the asana, were only one of the 8 "limbs" of yoga, a multifaceted practice ultimately aimed at spiritual goals; asana were meant to strengthen your body to allow you to sit in meditation for long periods of time without the distraction of pain!
of course, this isn't really discussed much in the American yoga tradition, which treats asana (and to a lesser extent pranayama, the breathing practice) as the entirety of it
but the lessons are there for those who seek them out
I was one such, autistically obsessing over it
over the years I'd drift away from and back to yoga, as with any other good habit I'd neglect at the times I needed it most
but yoga also taught me how to be better to myself, how to introspect and find the ways in which I was actively resisting doing the things I intended to do
just like a yoga teacher might tell you to relax your jaw or lower your shoulders when executing a challenging asana, the teacher in your own mind can learn to notice the tensions in your beliefs and actions, helping you to relax the "muscles" which didn't need to be pushing
this has huge consequences for your ability to more effectively be the person you want to be; when you learn to stop fighting yourself, much energy is freed up to be reinvested into ur growth
this has many connections to other practices, such as wu wei & the Alexander Technique
tbh, I'd dropped yoga entirely during the pandemic; I'd previously had a home practice, but shifted to practicing at the gym, and, well, was very slow to adjust all my routines in the face of this massive disruption.
coming back to it now feels like remembering a part of myself
for many years, yoga was one of the pillars of my physical, emotional, & spiritual health; letting it erode wasn't good for me, and I suffered consequences in each of those domains. it took me a while to attribute the changes I saw, and even one I did my guilt kept me deadlocked
in the end, it was my long-standing is struggle with back pain (exacerbated by the greatly increased time I spent sitting in a chair) which prompted me to get back into it; now that I'm a few sessions deep, it feels like a deep cleaning, reaching all my dusty neglected corners
chances are, I'll neglect this practice again at some point in the future; none among us is perfect, even tho I'd love to pretend I'm unique in that respect. but it feels good find myself able to come back home to yoga
altho jesus christ everything hurts and I'm out of breath
yoga became a major part of my life, both with the physical/social practice in yoga studios, and a more personal practice of pranayama and meditation
this, with no exaggeration, changed my life, and showed me a new way to relate to my physical, emotional, & spiritual selves