Final Experience With Yoga- wow

 

    Wow. If I could put my yoga experience this semester into one word it would be “wow.” I mean… seriously?? I had no idea my body could do some of the things it could do, and that's coming from a 10-year gymnast. Some might even ask, “well how could you not know” *cough* my mom *cough* but I'm dead serious. I had no idea my body could bend and balance in some of those ways. In another way, yoga taught me there are ways to be active without being active. Also learned within that very same concept is the idea of mental activity. The realization that sometimes exercising the mind is way more important than exercising the body. 

   This semester has been especially hard for me, I will admit. I am a type-A person. For whoever is unfamiliar with that concept, I am very “OCD” if you will. With that, comes my learning style. I learn from others actions, their demeanor, and thrive off of their presence. Between online classes this whole semester, to 2 of my brothers going off into the military AND taking 21 credits… I am ridiculously stressed. I don't know, I really don't. I wish I could be in classes with amazing professors who actually teach, I wish I could be with my friends to distract me from everybody not here anymore, and more importantly, I wish the world was just normal again. Selfish, I know… but I'm serious. 

    Honestly, yoga has taught me something no other class has been able to teach: relaxation. Relax, because it will all happen the way it is going to happen anyway. Yoga has taught me to live in the moment, that the now is the now and the future is then. Confusing, maybe, but true, yes. Yoga has brought up a realization of where I am in the world, a physical awareness if you will. It has also made me realize I am WAY smaller than I thought I was which only makes me feel better, surprisingly. There is comfort in realizing my problems are literally not making a difference to someone else, say... in Europe… or even my neighbor next door for that matter. For some, that may seem scary… for me it only made me feel better. It taught me to understand what my problems then mean for me. Yoga taught me to step outside of my shoes and look at my problems from another perspective. Suddenly, the normal things I would be stressing over like grades, work, and relationships looked so small, so irrelevant. 

    In another way, yoga has taught me the physical side of my body. Like I said before, my body can balance on just my hands now. That is ridiculous. Even to make such a claim is ridiculous but to actually be able to do it is too far-fetched. Yoga has also made me realize it is way harder than it looked when I would see others doing it. I knew it took a whole lot of muscle to be successful, but boy was I naive. I mean… some of those class yoga sessions had me sweating in the first 5 minutes. I’m serious too. I learned there are other ways to workout, mindfully, besides lifting weights, doing push-ups, or running. I like that idea, a lot.

    Overall, my time spent this course in yoga 101 has been nothing shy of a learning experience. I have a newfound appreciation for yoga. To be honest, I can't see myself ever not doing yoga now. It was a stick in my routine the first time I had to do it as an assignment if I’m honest. I had a mentality almost like the nick character in the documentary “Enlighten Up!” I am a science person who was not convinced taking time out of my day to do what I thought was “stretching” would do much, and boy oh boy could I have not been more wrong. Now it has become routine for me. It has become a part of me that I really can't see myself not doing. It is time set aside to think, but at the same time, not think at all… if that even makes sense. My appreciation for yoga is beyond what I thought it could have been at the beginning of the semester, and I say that genuinely. If I really did not like it I would be saying exactly that right now, but that is so far from my feelings. Yoga has made my self-awareness skyrocket, more than I already thought it was at. Yoga has given me a new perspective on life, genuinely, one that I hope to pass down to my future generation of children. One that I wished someone had taught me earlier in my life.