muscle memory

i went to a new yoga studio in federal way tonight and did yoga for the first time in a little over a year. i have really missed it! i've been doing yoga on and off for about a decade now, i guess! crazy how time flies! i have always said that yoga is the one form of exercise that i don't need to be forced to go and do. i hate working out, and will try to avoid it by doing just about anything else - but it's different with yoga... with yoga, i'm motivated enough to put it on the calendar and schedule around it. the act of yoga is reward enough to motivate me to go. considering my attitude about working out, that's all pretty amazing!

there are tons of things i love about yoga. what drew me to the practice in the first place was a desire to become more flexible. as it turns out i'm naturally fairly flexible - it's just my hamstrings that are not flexible. they never have been. but when other people are trying to asses how flexible you are, they tend to focus on whether or not you can touch your toes... i can't. if i work really hard on stretching out my hamstrings over the course of a month or so, then i can (kind of), but it's never been easy - and therefore people assume that i'm not flexible. well guess what? turns out i'm flexible everywhere else, and good at it. my hips are open and crazy flexible, as are my thighs, and i can do twist poses like nobody's business... it's just those friggin' hamstrings!

yoga also builds strength. that's the one that i wasn't expecting 10 years ago when i first started doing yoga. i started to develop new muscles in places i didn't even know i had them. that was pretty cool!

my hands-down favorite thing about yoga, though, is that relaxed feeling immediately afterward... as if all of the tension, that i wasn't even aware of beforehand, has just drained from my body, leaving everything nice and relaxed and happy. My body feels like it's giving me one big huge relaxed thank-you after every yoga session i've ever had. yoga is one of my favorite ways to relax. body and mind both love it.

as i said, today was my first day back after about a year without yoga, and i've really missed it. this was a new (to me) studio about 20 minutes away from my house, and (obviously) a new instructor - i really liked her. i loved the practice, and i really liked her personality. she was very friendly and welcoming, and then she came and checked in with me afterward. I had not told her beforehand that I had done yoga before, but as I was gathering my things to leave, she came and asked if I had done yoga before. I told her that I had, and she told me that she thought so, because I seemed to know the poses pretty well and had nice form. that was pretty awesome! i've never had an instructor check in with me like that after a first session, and I really appreciated it! and even better, it was nice to know that after a year without yoga, my body still knows what its doing.

i've always found that interesting. once i've trained my muscles to do something, they don't forget. they haven't forgotten how to ride a bike (and i know because i tried it once a few years ago, after god knows how many years without bothering, and i didn't fall down. i could still do it)... it doesn't matter how long i go without drawing or painting - my hands still know how to do it with skill... and now i have a professional opinion on the yoga front: after a year without yoga, my body still knows the proper way to do a down dog. the human body is pretty cool isn't it?