To cel­e­brate yoga aware­ness month I decided to share key expe­ri­ences and mile­stones on a 5‑year yoga jour­ney. Unlike other prac­ti­tion­ers, I started late — and wish yoga had found me many years ear­lier.

Early Beginnings

Yoga DVDs and Books

My sis­ter Judi encour­aged me to try yoga 10 years ago. She gave me a sweet book, A Morn­ing Cup of Yoga; sadly, it lan­guished unread for sev­eral years.

I was­n’t ready to take up a prac­tice that demanded dis­ci­pline, not even the sim­ple 15-minute rou­tines pro­posed by A Morn­ing Cup of Yoga.

My sis­ter knew I was suf­fer­ing chronic back pain, aggra­vated by cer­vi­cal disk degen­er­a­tion, and was spend­ing too much time and money on phys­i­cal ther­apy. So she kept push­ing me to try yoga, and pro­posed var­i­ous ways to get started.

She sug­gested instruc­tional yoga DVDs by well-known teach­ers such as Rod­ney Yee. After much prod­ding, I invested in a cheap mat and a DVD or two. Out of bore­dom, per­haps, I stum­bled through yoga poses sev­eral times a week, watch­ing DVDs played back from a Mac lap­top propped on some bed­room fur­ni­ture.

This was enough to break the ice, but not enough to keep me going (or keep me out of align­ment trou­ble!) Once in a while I caught a glimpse of what yoga might offer, but this soli­tary self-guided prac­tice did not pro­vide enough moti­va­tion to keep me going on a sus­tained basis.

Mean­while I was get­ting older, heav­ier and increas­ingly out of shape. My back and neck pains demanded daily doses of ibupro­fen to keep me mov­ing. It was­n’t always easy to get out of bed in the morn­ing.

Yoga En Provence

In early 2008 some for­mer Apple friends invited me to join them on a week­long yoga retreat in south­ern France. They enticed me with images of yoga in Provence, the joys of France in late June, the enchant­ment of a vil­lage per­ché.

Each day of the yoga retreat would fea­ture 4 hours of prac­tice led by an Anusara teacher they were bring­ing from their Cal­i­for­nia stu­dio. Not know­ing how out-of-shape I was, they assured me I’d have no trou­ble keep­ing up with the class…

Plus, we’d get to stay in a charm­ing medieval vil­lage perched on a hill­top in Provence. As a long-term fran­cophile, this travel oppor­tu­nity caught my atten­tion. I love France, and am pas­sion­ately fond of French cui­sine, cheeses and wine.

In my naïveté I said yes — hav­ing no idea what I was sign­ing up for. Every­one else on the retreat, except for the teacher’s mother, was an expe­ri­enced yoga prac­ti­tioner. They had all been prac­tic­ing for 3 years or more, knew the poses, knew how to breathe — and were both strong and sup­ple.

None of these things described my sit­u­a­tion. I was unskilled, weak, and very inflex­i­ble. Luck­ily, I’d been an ath­lete as a young woman, which proved to be a sav­ing grace when try­ing to sur­vive a retreat for which I was supremely unready…

After see­ing my total inex­pe­ri­ence, the teacher stuck me in a back cor­ner with his equally unskilled mother. From time to time he’d ven­ture back there, and give us basic instruc­tion. He was a great teacher.

The weather was bru­tally hot — mid-90s every day — and there was no air con­di­tion­ing. We hiked a mile each way to the yoga stu­dio, includ­ing steep hill climbs back to our hill­top hotel. I spent the week cov­ered with sweat, and could barely keep from slip­ping off the mat from one pose to the next. My hands or feet slipped out from under me on more than one Down­ward Fac­ing Dog.

Despite the many chal­lenges, I found moments of joy in some of the poses. On my last day I achieved an assisted hand­stand for a moment or so. The com­mu­nity of yoga prac­ti­tion­ers was wel­com­ing, will­ing to over­look my inep­ti­tude. They gave me a glimpse of what yoga has to offer…

The over­all expe­ri­ence was just good enough to per­suade me to sign up for classes when back home in the Seat­tle area.

Yoga Classes in Seattle

Hav­ing enjoyed the Anusara instruc­tion in Provence, I looked for Anusara teach­ers in Seat­tle, and was lucky enough to find a won­der­ful stu­dio at Seat­tle Yoga Arts.

For the next sev­eral years I rel­ished in the ter­rific instruc­tion and won­der­ful yoga com­mu­nity at SYA, until wors­en­ing Seat­tle traf­fic and park­ing has­sles moti­vated me look for more con­ve­nient alter­na­tives.

I bounced back and forth between sev­eral East­side stu­dios, YogaB­liss on Mer­cer Island and Vil­lage Green Yoga in Issaquah. The lat­ter has a warm and wel­com­ing com­mu­nity. It also fea­tures small classes where you can get hands-on align­ment cor­rec­tion or guid­ance in almost every class. It was a great place to refine my prac­tice. Both stu­dios have great teach­ers, and a good selec­tion of class styles and lev­els.

I took some pri­vate classes with an inspired (and inspir­ing) yoga teacher who refined my poses and pushed me to build more core and upper body strength. Diana Gould Bony­hadi made a huge dif­fer­ence at a crit­i­cal junc­ture in my prac­tice last year. Unfor­tu­nately, her teach­ing stu­dio was a long drive from my home, and ulti­mately required more time dur­ing work­ing hours than I could sus­tain. So I switched back to the stu­dio that was 10 min­utes from home.

YogaB­liss offers sev­eral types of vinyasa flow classes, with an empha­sis on Power Vinyasa Yoga, but also offers hot yoga for peo­ple who want to sweat heav­ily while prac­tic­ing yoga. (I’ve tried but am not a fan of hot yoga — too much like gym for my tastes.) I’ve indulged in an unlim­ited pass, and now take classes with sev­eral gifted teach­ers.

5 Years Later

These days I com­bine reg­u­lar classes sev­eral times a week with a ded­i­cated home prac­tice. Unless I’m trav­el­ing, I prac­tice yoga at least 5 times weekly.

It’s made a huge dif­fer­ence to my phys­i­cal and men­tal well­be­ing. Although not overtly spir­i­tual, I’ve begun learn­ing med­i­ta­tion to sup­ple­ment (or nour­ish) the yoga asanas.

Friends say I look much younger. I cer­tainly feel bet­ter. My chronic back and neck pains dis­ap­peared a year or so ago, after 20 years of unwel­come pres­ence in my life. I’ve dropped sev­eral cloth­ing sizes — even though weight loss was not a dri­ving moti­va­tion for prac­tic­ing yoga. My doc­tor says X‑rays no longer show sco­l­io­sis (cur­va­ture) in my neck.

I feel much calmer and more cen­tered, more pre­pared to han­dle what­ever life wants to send my way. Yoga keeps me present and grounded. It has helped me grieve and cel­e­brate my moth­er’s con­tri­bu­tions (she died a few months ago).

I’ve learned that it’s impor­tant to prac­tice yoga wher­ever you are — from hotel rooms to vaca­tion stays — even on the deck of the sail­boat we char­tered in Des­o­la­tion Sound last week. I prac­tice off the mat, too, espe­cially when doing things I don’t oth­er­wise enjoy, like wash­ing dishes or vac­u­um­ing.

Places Where I’ve Practiced Yoga This Year

I’ve been blessed to prac­tice yoga in a num­ber of beau­ti­ful places this year, from Cape Cod to Mex­ico, from Barcelona to Des­o­la­tion Sound (Canada). Over the past year I’ve enjoyed 2 yoga retreats led by SYA’s won­der­ful teacher, Eliz­a­beth Rainey. She led mem­o­rable retreats in Sayulita, Mex­ico, and Sleep­ing Lady in Leav­en­worth, WA.

When unable to take classes or moti­vate myself to plan my own rou­tine, I take online classes offered by Yoga­Glo. Although the pro­duc­tion val­ues can be dis­ap­point­ing, Yoga­Glo fea­tures some top-notch yoga teach­ers and hun­dreds of great classes.

Here’s a pic­to­r­ial sam­pling of my past 12 months of yoga venues, from yoga retreats in Sayulita, Mex­ico, and Sleep­ing Lady (Leav­en­worth WA) to the fore­deck of a sail­boat in Des­o­la­tion Sound… And an at-home class with Yoga­Glo.

Among the lessons I’ve learned is to prac­tice yoga reg­u­larly but mind­fully, wher­ever life takes you. Enjoy the beauty of your sur­round­ings, the beauty of your com­pan­ions in life — and breathe in the beauty of a reg­u­lar prac­tice.

Every­one in your life will thank you for it.