The Weekly Yogini

I got back into yoga last summer. And I say got back into it with a bit of a sigh. As, I have this pattern of creating healthy habits to enrich my lifestyle. And then. I sheepishly abandon them. It is always some major life change that comes up. Knee surgery, college, planning a wedding, graduate school, job travels, illness, pregnancy, new babies, emotional catastrophes. So many intrusions to what should be a zen routine.

I had walked away, pun intended, from most physical activity when suffering the ills of hyperemesis gravidarum during my second pregnancy. As the little one was over a year old, I dusted my lazy bones off and headed back into the yoga studio last summer. As I was saying before I described my obnoxious physical hibernation track record.

Usually I have to do everything all or nothing. I resumed my yoga practiced with the commitment of once per week. In my one night off a week, I would get lost in the sweaty confines of a local vinyasa class. And that would have to be enough. With all of our other family commitments and goings on, once a week was going to be as good as it got.

I trusted that for that period of time once a week would be sufficient and I would enjoy the time that I had practicing. So for about 3 months, once a week was all I did. I let go of the idea that I needed more. I savored the time that I did have. When other students of the studio chatted about the class they took yesterday, the class they were planning on taking tomorrow and the workshop they were signing up for next weekend - I knew that was what they were able to do and I was in a different place. I would answer people's queries of what class I was taking next with the honest answer. I'll be back next Wednesday. And the Wednesday after that. Once a week. That's what I'm doing. That's *all* I'm doing. And that is enough.

Amazingly I found that from one Wednesday to the next I could actually feel some endurance kicking in. I could find progress in my poses. My flexibility of yesteryear was returning. Faster than I thought. Don't you read things like you need to do a form of exercise five times a week or even three times a week to get any benefit at all? That's what I thought anyway. Well, some did prove to be better than none.

In three months time I was able to get my heels back down in downward dog. I could hang out in plank for some breaths without trembling. My fingertips reached the floor again in triangle. I could bind my arms and grip my hands in some twists. Not all, but a few. My past life's flexibility as a dancer returned, nearly untouched since its last performance. One day at a time I went to yoga when I could. Once a week. And that was enough. It was progress. Not perfection.