"Oh SHIT," I thought, as our yoga teacher Jane came to the door holding a beautiful orchid plant, "this is it. She's had enough of our whining and question-asking and weird smells emanating from our dog, always from the dog, never from us! She's leaving us! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"
I braced myself for the goodbye, because, like Taylor Swift, it's all I've ever known. But Jane took me by surprise and said "It's our one year yoga anniversary! So I brought you an orchid! Also, here are some raw vegan gluten-free brownies. They should go in the freezer."
That Jane...she's the best.
I can hardly believe that it's been a whole year since we "began our yoga journey". There has been sweating. There has been weeping. There has been accidental groping (of us by Jane...of Jane by us...of Emmy Lou by Jane and us). But there has also been some significant progress and I have to say that while we can't yet do this:
We are suuuuuuuuuuuuper close.
Here are some changes I've noticed since we started our corporate yoga initiative a year ago:
- There is a lot more grunting in the house.
- I really appreciate yoga jokes, in a way that I didn't ever think would be possible.
- Emmy Lou loves yoga too. Her favourite move is the "Sheddingalloveryourmattasana".
- Some foam blocks are denser than others.
- If I do 10 minutes of sun salutation-esque activity every day, my back stops hurting and I feel like a normal human.
- Breathing is THE SHIT.
- Ashtanga yoga (the kind we do) is the best kind of yoga. All other yoga is "pussy yoga". As in, yoga for pussies, not yoga for your pussy.
- Sometimes, when you transition from the cobra to downward dog, you involuntarily let fly such an intense, fabric-rending, dog-disturbing, room-destroying burst of flatulence that the other people in the room think that you've kicked over a chair and then none of you can stop laughing.
- When Jane says "soft gaze", she is not actually saying "soft gays".
- You haven't fully tested the limits of how far up your ass your yoga pants can go until you finish three variations of Prasarita Padottanasana.
- Yoga is never "finished."
This last one was a tough one for me - the idea that I will never "get it right" and be able to stop doing yoga forever. Yoga is this neverending, constantly shifting exercise in "finding space", "breathing into your heart", "lengthening your spine", trying not to get dizzy or barf or cry, thinking a lot more about your perineum than you're used to and smelling yourself.
But I am pretty pleased that we've been doing it for A WHOLE YEAR. And I look forward to our two-year yoga-versary, which I hope will see us both throwing moves that FEEL like this:
but will likely look more like this:
FAT YOGA RULES!!!
