If you don’t like yoga, you’re probably an asshole

So there was a point in my life when I thought yoga was a giant waste of time whose sole purpose was to affirm the life choices of ambitionless hippies.  The gym was like a production floor to me, churning out calories at a maximum rate.  I wanted efficiency, predictability and results.  I would sporadically take yoga classes because everyone was doing it but I wasn’t quite sure what the fuss was all about.  At my first yoga class I remember those last 5 minutes of silence and rest were the worst five minutes of my life.  Who the fuck has the time to relax? I thought.  Instead of letting go, I ran through my long list of “must do’s”( who I was thinking about fucking) and mentally revising my list of enemies.  When my dad (a long time yogi) asked me what I thought about class I said “umm, was that a work out because half of those people were asleep.”  And then I judged them HARD and basically gave up on the whole idea for many many years.

 Spring forward 5ish years and I’m now taking at least two yoga classes a week.  Sitting in tree pose last night I thought about the woman girl I used to be.  When yoga seemed like a joke I was:

More concerned with winning than really anything else.

Thought relaxing, vacations and leaving work at a decent hour were concepts designed by the lazy.

Buying a shit load of expensive clothes.  Hoarding is probably the better verb. 

Aligning myself with people who lived a lifestyle I believed I wanted to have.

Drinking a lot.

Anyone see a pattern?  Clearly I didn’t until last night.  I’ve intentionally made a lot of changes in my life this year and it’s terrifying to see that I’m become the laid back hippie my parents always wanted me to be.  I literally have to stop and ask “who the fuck am I?” as I watch myself baking, going to church and passing up on opportunities to drink my face off. 

But back to yoga – last night I got incredibly excited as I realized how flexible I was becoming.  I literally caught myself thinking “dude, I need to go back and do the sit and reach for my old gym teachers, I would ROCK that.”  And lest you think I’m a physical anomaly, I was thinking all of this while next to the most flexible tiny asian man in the world.  He could literally sauté a nice ahi tuna whilst upside down on one arm.  But his ethereal skills didn’t pressure me or get me down, I just thought “wow” and went back to concentrating on my own small victories. 

And that, my friends, is what yoga is all about.