(From 2016)

The first couple of yoga classes were tough. Part of it was plain old fatigue. I didn’t give up my regular visits to the YMCA to lift weights.

I’d more than doubled the amount of time I was exercising.

For the first week, I was sore in places I wasn’t used to be sore in, and I whined about it to anyone who’d listen.

From talking to the yoga instructors at The Folded Leaf, we figured that this came from working the core muscles. Aside from stretching joints, yoga works core muscles.

April Woody added, “You’re a little like me. You’re kind of low to the ground and stout. You’re used to using major muscle groups to get things done. The little ones haven’t been worked as much.”

She told me to keep an eye on it, reminded me that yoga wasn’t torture, and that The Folded Leaf offered several gentler classes.

I could dial it down a notch or two, if I needed. She offered to show me some more meditation-related things I could do that didn’t take much time, weren’t very strenuous, but still counted as yoga.

It felt like cheating to not hit the mat. So, I kept at it, bumbling forward without really choosing classes based on much rhyme or reason –most of it had to do with convenience, when I could get to a class.

I took the morning class on Saturday and the mid-afternoon class on Sunday because both were easy to get to on the weekend.

Also, on Saturdays, the instructor, Leslie Drake, brought muffins!

During the week, I went to mid-day classes because they sounded more geared toward beginners, like me.

The Folded Leaf’s schedule was daunting –not because I didn’t think I could get to a class. I just didn’t really know for sure what I was getting myself into.

Yoga is old. The various practices that became yoga recognized today are somewhere between three and six thousand years old, and originated in ancient language, which spoke Sanskrit, a language that seems to be dead except with yoga instructors.

So, I talked to April.

She said, “What we’re doing is called the 8-limbed path of yoga. The postures (asana) are just one of the limbs. Ideally we’re supposed to practice all of them. They are: Yama (moral restraints) Niyama (moral prescriptions) Asana (postures) Pranayama (breath work) Pratyahara (separating self from sensory input) Dharana (concentration) Dhyana (meditation) Samadhi (enlightenment).”

There is a mystical aspect to yoga and the practice itself is at least partially interwoven into several eastern religions including Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism.

That seemed like a lot to absorb, at least in one month.

April, who is working on a book, told me not to worry so much about the metaphysics. The main thing was to get into a regular practice, do the work, and let things take their natural course.

Still, I wasn’t sure what each class really was. So, I tried to figure out with the help of the Wikipedia, which while not incredibly accurate, did give me a fair sense of what individual classes might be about.

Hatha yoga, for example, was described as usually being more about stretching, moving into poses and holding them, as opposed to flowing between poses. Hatha classes are often used as an introduction to yoga, where you learn the poses slowly and get comfortable with holding them.

Yin Yoga is supposed to be slower, with fewer poses held for as long as five minutes. It’s supposed to be more meditative and can get a little granola crunchy with ideas about universal unity.

Yinyasa is a more flowing type of yoga that links breath with movement. It tends to be a little more physically demanding.

Basic Hatha” sounded about my speed, but slowly, I began to branch out, and try a few things –except one.

Hot Vinyasa.

That one worried me. It sounded horrible.

On Thursday nights, The Folded Leaf offered two classes –one of them is called Hot Vinyasa and Yin/ Deep Stretch Yoga.

I wasn’t sure if I was up for Hot Vinyasa. So, I checked with my co-worker Anna, who is training to be a yoga instructor. She told me Hot Vinyasa was a little more involved.

“It’s a flow,” she said. “You move from pose to pose, and they turn up the heat.”

It sounded like a lot of work, and I was sore I complained.

“You could take the night off,” she suggested.

I shook my head. I’d already missed a couple of classes. I felt like I needed to do something other than go home and catch up on whatever endgame Frank and Claire Underwood are planning on “House of Cards.”

We decided if I was going to do yoga, the deep stretch sounded like a much better idea.

“But you ought to do the Vinyasa before the month is up,” Anna said.

I nodded. Yes, yes, I would do the Vinyasa, whatever that meant.

The Yin class, taught by my friend Autumn Hopkins was just a small group, which included Autumn’s husband Fred. 

While the class next door cooked themselves, and (for all I know) did elaborate Bollywood dance numbers, the Yin class worked through several of the poses I’d seen in other classes, but we held them longer, and the focus wasn’t so much on strength building, balance, or increasing flexibility, but just calming down, and relaxing.

It was a nice break from the other kinds of classes I’d been taking, but honestly, I was starting to get into it.

Everybody was really nice, and while I wasn’t quite as flexible as Chelsea, a 20-something who works in the medical profession, who apparently can touch her forehead with the back of her heel, once the soreness faded, I began loosening up.

Within a short time I was completing poses I couldn’t do the first day or the first week.

To be sure, I was as graceful as a drunken moose, and every pose involving me standing on one foot seemed like flirting with a face plant, but I was getting stronger. I could feel it.

Those core muscles that ached during the first few days, began helping me at the gym with my bench presses and squats. It thought I could see or feel muscles in places I hadn’t noticed before, and I felt more focused.

I was kind of impressed, actually.