1998

Introduction to Yoga

The first week in January Julie and I started taking yoga classes.  At the end of December Julie one day said that she was interested in taking a yoga class and that she had found a yoga studio nearby that offered classes and asked if I would be interested in taking a class with her and I said yes. The class was being offered at the Health Advantage Yoga Center (HAYC) in Herndon which was only a few miles from where we lived. The class was listed as a Level 1 class for beginners, no prior yoga experience needed, what the heck, I thought, I was in pretty good shape for being 45 years old and thought I should be able to handle it. 

The hour and half long class was at 9 AM on Saturday mornings and ran for ten weeks. HAYC was on the second floor of a typical office building in the area. Julie had called the studio before the first class to find out what to wear so I wore my gym pants and a T-shirt. Not quite knowing what to expect, we showed up a good twenty minutes early and walk up the stairs into a small lobby where there was a woman behind a desk who greeted us.  After checking us in, she handed us a handout that she said was practice sheets for each class and then she explains that shoes are not allowed in the yoga rooms. The receptionist said the class was in the Green room as she pointed down the hall and she said the instructor was there and would explain more.  The rooms were named after the color carpet in them which, Green and Red and then in later years Orange and Purple.

After taking off our shoes and leaving them in the cubby holes in the lobby, we proceed down the hall to the Green room. It was a nice room, with a high ceiling and several large arched windows in the front that flooded the room with light. Being one of the first to arrive, we find a man at the front of the room doing some yoga exercises who I assumed to be the instructor for when we signed up the instructor was listed as Kevin.  Kevin pauses his exercise when he sees us and welcomes us into the room and asks if this is our first class which we say yes.  Kevin seemed like a nice guy, a few years younger than me, and a bit on the chubby side which surprised me for I thought anyone teaching yoga would be thin.  Stereotypes. Kevin then directs us to get a yoga mat, three blankets, a yoga belt and a block from the shelves in the corner of the room. A yoga mat, and a what and what? Kevins sees the confused look on my face and says, “Here, let me show you.”, and leads us to, what I would later learn, the props, which we gather awkwardly in our arms and leads us back into the room and tells us to find a spot and roll out our mat. Fortunately, there was one other person in the room already in place so we find a spot in the back of the room, lay out our mats, have a seat on a stack the folded blankets and look over the practice sheet handout.

It didn’t take long for a dozen or more students showed up, set their mats on the floor and were seated. Kevin started the class right on time and gave a nice introduction to yoga and what to expect in the class. HAYC, taught in a progressive manner, he explained, with each class in the 13-class session building on previous classes. The handout, he explained, describes what will be covered each week.  Don’t worry, he said, there are no tests, no passing or failing, you just do to the best of your abilities. I liked that a lot better than when I took karate classes back in the early 70’s that had tests. [link] Oh, and if you miss a class, you can come to any other Level 1 class taught by any teacher. That was nice, its likely that over thirteen weeks I might miss a class and there were several other Level 1 classes during the week for makeups.

The class started and I found it much easier than I expected.  Start with some breathing, then some things lying on the floor, some kneeling and seated poses, and then some standing poses, like just standing there, Kevin called it Mountain pose. Ok it was a bit more than just standing there, feet in a specific position, knees not locked but slightly bent, shoulders broad, extend up through the top of your head. I tell people I’m six foot two, but I’m more like six feet 1½ because I slouch a bit. I think first mountain pose I really was 6’2”. Then came what he called Tree pose, standing on one leg with the other one bent with foot resting on the inner thigh.  Tree pose was harder, my balance is all that good, but I managed. We then returned to the floor with a couple more lying down poses, ending with a laying down final relaxation. It wasn’t just lying there, Kevin explained, it was Savasana, or corpse pose, lying on your back with the legs and arms in a specific position.

I liked it. It was relaxing, it was nice to move my body in new ways, the classes were taught in a logical, building way that I liked. Julie and I continued the following weeks not missing a class the entire session. Yoga would become a important part of my life in the following years.

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