The First Step

The first step is deciding that you're going to spend $17 on a class. Even when you haven't done yoga ever before, there's a feeling that the yoga at the gym is different from yoga at a studio. I've seen a lot of people come into the studio, grab a price list and a schedule just to see what it's like inside. The wheels are turning: "$17 for a class. That's a night at the movies. That's dinner at a chain restaurant. That's 1/4 a tank of gas. That could be anything." Most studios will offer an introductory rate that allows unlimited access for a week. While that's an outstanding offer, I like to take at least one class there before I do the unlimited week so that I can see if I like it. Once I've determined I like the studio, I would then sign up for the week to see if there is a teacher there that I click with. But we're getting ahead of it.

$17

So you haven't done yoga, you're looking at the $17 like it's going to change, and it's not. You might be wondering what could possibly be going on in there that $17 is a worthwhile expenditure. I remember. I was there. It's pretty impossible to be a person that does yoga without actually signing up, paying the $17, and going to a class. So the first thing you have to do, is decide that it's worth the $17 to see. After that, everything else is possible.

Becoming Yogic

It's a funny process because it's not just going to yoga classes. It's what you think, what you eat, how you live your life. This is not a change that happens overnight, it's something that happens from one moment to another, it's a bunch of decisions that will at some point, culminate in having a totally and completely different life from the one you had not so long ago. It's a state of mind. It's a series of actions. It's a practice.

The first yoga class

It was 2001, I was 23 years old and I'd just been through a terrible break-up. It was awful at the time, one of those heart wrenching ordeals that would have been too long and uncut for a Romantic Comedy. No, this was a drama. One with long scenic shots that go on forever and doesn't so much have a soundtrack, just ominous tones.

A friend had gone to a studio in Redondo Beach, CA... loved the class, and thought it might be a good way to get me out of my Kafka-esque depressive coma.

... and it was. Sort of.

As I recall (ten years later) it seems like the class would have been an Ashtanga level 1. There were definitely sun salutations, and I distinctly remember looking around and trying to figure out what the heck everyone was doing. It was a moving collage of arms and legs windmilling around in a dizzying blur of strangers and sweaty palms. The teacher was walking around the room with his wicked tan and wispy white pants, calling out in a language I'd never heard playing music involving an instrument I had no idea existed. The whole thing a surreal sort of slant to it. All I knew is that my palms were slick, I was tired, sweating, confused, and most of all, I just wanted to cry. Looking back, I almost can't believe that I teach yoga myself now.