A New Fitness Venture: Yoga

Anyone who knows me well is going yoga? Amongst my friends and family I am not known for my coordination, flexibility, or dance like moves. Who am I kidding, I can barely sing and clap in church. You are going Emily why would you put yourself such torture? Three weeks ago I started yoga at the rec center by our house. I wanted something relaxing, something that forced me out of the house, something that committed me at least one organized class a week, and something challenging. When I was in high school I spent nearly all four years playing volleyball year round almost seven days a week. During the high school season playing six days a week and once the season was over moving on to club season where most weeks you played seven days a week traveling all over Oregon playing in tournaments. Although I enjoyed my time playing volleyball at the end of my senior year I quit cold turkey while most of my teammates were going off to play in college. Over the last ten years I have played recreational volleyball and had the chance to coach, however I have really enjoyed taking on new sports and activities. On my adventure for a new hobby I have experience karate:



As you can see by my impressive "white belt" my karate days were somewhat limited. Before karate Joey and I tried to get into white water rafting.



White Water rafting was fun...... well kind of (yes, that is me holding on the rope in the back) I guess anything that has instructions that include "when you fall out of the raft point your feet downstream and we will "try" to get to you" didn't make for a ton of fun.

So as for my long list of hobbies that have lead me to yoga. Recreational volleyball, karate, rafting, handgun class, group aerobics, oh the list goes on. Well now I am into week three of yoga and I truly love the class. During week one my goal was to survive the class without having to leave crawling out the door. Glad to say I met my first goal. The class has shown me contentment both with my life and with my body. Yoga respects your body for where you are physically and give you room to grow. I am by far the least coordinated in the class, but somehow I feel comfortable at the point I am at physically. Does this mean I am at the weight or physical fitness level I want to be? No, however I feel like yoga is helping me move forward. Second, yoga shows you as you can release stress and tension from you life you are also the one that brings it in. I find this important because it is so easy to get wrapped up in everything going on in life and forget we control how we react to the variables in our lives. Most important for one hour a week I feel "Oregon" again other people who want to feel one with the earth and talk about BPA free water bottles and recycling. I am excited for my new hobby and to blog about my physical progress and yet another chapter of my crazy, never a dull moment life.