Let’s all do Yoga!

As far as I was concerned Yoga has always been something other (more flexible!) people did. Hippies do it, people travelling and ‘finding themselves’ do it, people in India and visiting India do it, cool people do it and spiritual people do it. Then I started to realise every type of person was doing it… and I tried it and I loved it! Really loved it.

That was a year (or two ago). You see Yoga, for the beginner at least, requires that you go to a class, going to a class means that you go to a yoga centre and that is usually much easier if you are in one place for a length of time. My problem is I never seem to be anywhere for any significant length of time. However, I signed up for a taster course and I did about 8 sessions and I really liked it. Then I was on the move again and Yoga took a back seat.

However, just a few weeks ago I was in Vancouver visiting my smallest friend (she’s 3ft 7!) and she was looking in possibly the best shape I’d ever seen her in and was incredibly happy. I asked her what was going on and she just smiled and said, ‘yoga mate!’. I was travelling (with a slightly taller friend) who is also looking utterly fabulous at the moment and guess what? She’s doing it too! So the three of us (in height order – I’m the tallest by a few feet!) went to yoga together. Bikram Yoga.

I was pretty terrible in my first class, but the second was so much better and very quickly I realised Yoga is possibly one of the best things (I think) we can do for our bodies.

So many of the sports we do are high impact and have some kind of damaging effect as well as a positive fitness effect. Take running for example. Great for fitness but not so great for your knees, hips and back. Don’t get me wrong here, I like running…. I’m just aware that with Yoga it seems I’ve found something that conditions and strengthens without any negatives.

I would recommend it to everyone, of all heights! I think that it compliments every other sport you do and even though I struggle to regularly be anywhere for any significant length of time I’m going to do as much Yoga as I can.