Hot Yoga Breath

A few days ago, I was getting my fix of celebrity quarantine life and I saw a picture where Gisele Bundchen was describing her time social distancing. If you google the image , you will see a slim bean of a woman lying on a pool mat in an indoor beautiful pool, hoisting her daughter above her and they are both in the perfect “plank position” that I have been trying to achieve since fourth grade gym class. In the article, Gisele describes how she is using the time to reflect with her family and really find her inner being. First off, okay let me just say. Her covid lockdown experience and my lockdown experience are vastly different. She looks like she is staying at a vacation resort that I wish I could ever afford and if I tried that same yoga pose with my daughter, my neighbor would definitely call the police, either because she would think someone was filming Shameless or doing a re-creation of the Blackfish documentary. Also, we would be in someone else pool, also we would be drowning. Why do we do this ourselves? The comparisons? Why do I check and see if Kelly Ripa is okay during these dark times. Of course she is okay, she is locked inside with her hot husband, and her chef and personal trainer. She has to zoom with Ryan Seacrest, instead of sit cross legged next to him, in her designer dress, but nonetheless Ryan Seacrest is still her close alliance. At my neck of the woods, I tried to say hi to my mail man because my social time is so limited and he mashed the gas and took off down the street. So yeah, we all have a different wave length of suffering. But when I looked at that picture of Gisele, besides spending just a few minutes body shaming myself and wishing I had a pool, it also jolted me into doing some yoga. Thank you Gisele! Thank You Buccaneers! That’s where Tommy went right?

I think yoga is one of those things you really have to jump into with your whole body. You have to be a believer about it. The first few times I tried yoga, I was like Amy Schumer, snickering from the sidelines, making fun of all the labor breathing and the soft music. I think if you are going to be an ass hole about it (which I was) yoga is never going to work for you. It also looks like a soft gentle workout and it is absolutely not most of the time. Three months ago, I took a yoga class with a friend in downtown Augusta. I would enter into each move like the tin man and really resist stretching into it. The instructor kept saying, breath deeper into the movement. In my head I am thinking, bitch I am breathing, breathing and my hip is about to fall off. Oh my god , oh my god, someone get me out of this move, I’m dying, I’m dying , I’m dying and then after what felt like four years of warrior one, I got out of my own head and stretched more. That is half the battle, getting out of your own head. When ever I start doing yoga after a long stretch of not doing it, I am super distracted, like a little squirrel running back and forth between trees, teasing all the boys squirrels, my brain is ping ponging like crazy. But then, once I really let go and do that downward dog three or four times, I stop thinking about how my dog has ruined my life, and my body isn’t what I want and are kids being nice to my kids and will my husband do the dishes. I start just being in the moment which is super tricky for me, you , anyone to actually do.

Since I can’t attend that yoga studio right now, or go up to the waterfront yoga group that I really want to join, I have latched onto the next best thing. My Beach Body best friend , but she doesn’t know it yet Autumn Calabrese. I prefer her old 21 Day Fix program, but you do you boo. I like that one because it has the meditating music in the background, no bands, weights, loops required to hurt yourself in, and she always shows you various ways to do the moves without making you feel like an elephant. Plus Kat is there. Do you guys know Kat? She is the modifier, but in my world modifier means closest confidant. She has this beautiful red hair and actual woman’s body and if Kat can’t do something, she doesn’t give a rip, she just does the movement a different way, with less range but more personality. When my best friend Autumn is pissing me off, I really turn to Kat.

My favorite move in yoga is and will always be pigeon. Pigeon gets a lot of crap because people think only gymnasts or dancers can do it. Not true, pigeon is great for everyone and anyone. Pigeon is essentially bending one knee in will sitting on the ground and your other leg is behind you out straight and you are leaning over the one bent leg. At first you will feel like someone is torturing you on Ozark, but then after twenty seconds, it will feel like you are only slightly being annoyed and after forty five seconds , I swear to god it will feel like god damn medicine, any hip or back pain you have will poof go away. Any problems or financial woes you have will dissipate completely. Just kidding on the last part, pigeon can’t do everything you guys! But really give it a try and let me know what you think. The other moves I love for this never ending house imprisonment is cat and cow and dead baby. No that can’t be right, who would name a move that? Oh whoops, it is happy baby. My bad! This one is super good for the hips and the back especially if you just started back up running and aren’t that great at it yet. Wink wink.

The best part about yoga is the end. If you have never tried yoga before, you will not believe me until you have done it three or four times and then you will KNOW what I mean. The instructor will have you lay on your mat in the dead corpse position with your palms facing the ceiling. The first time I did it, I thought it was some weird social experiment where Ashton Kutcher would run out and punk me, I didn’t understand why we were all just lying there wasting time. I got shit to do ! But then after a few times of getting out of my own head like I described above, I came to cherish this time of just lying there, having no one talk to me, no one ask me questions and just be. I don’t think there are many other times in your day when you can just be, unless you are sleeping or lying on a beach and even then I can still hear my kids talking. What methods are working for you to relax and rid yourself of stress, bad karma and germs? Have you tried yoga and absolutely hate it or can you bend it like the Brady’s in that mentioned picture? Feel free to comment whatever your status. Breathe in, breath out, make time for you and making fun of yourself.