Yogi Bear never had it so hard!

I have officially become a yogi. Or Yogi Bear as I am want to cutely name myself in front of Yoga teachers much to their amusement (hopefully). I have taken up yoga as a form of both excercise and as a way of strengthening my back which has always slouched and caused me pain from a young age due mainly to an ailment called laziness. And guess what I love it. I have never been someone who likes to excercise for excercise sake. I get bored with running on a mill like a hampster or spinning on a bike in from of a Tellie or an over enthusiastic instructor. I tried Karate once and loved it but always came home black and blue as my sparring partners where always Keith Carradine and Jean Calude Van Damn. I assumed yoga would be a load of relaxing stretches and poses held for the effect of strengthening a particular muscle. Boy was I wrong. There is so much to yoga that I will not be able to mention it all in one sitting on a blog and I will write about my experiences in more detail as I learn more. Needless to say its invigorating and exhausting in equal measure. Once you learn some basic moves and basic poses (the names of which may make you giggle at first) "up dog", "down dog", "the cobra", "the pigeon", "the camel" the list goes on and most of them are named after an animal or celestial sign of some kind or another. Then there are the poses which are obviously from some ancient fighting version of yoga. Like "Thai Chi" which incorporates karate fighting motions with a slowed down fluid motion akin to a dance, yoga moves the body into poses that would be agressive in nature if they weren't so darn fulfilling and calming when acheived. Warrior pose I and II for example which is meant to strengthen and stretch the muscles in your legs and open your chest and help your balance. Mostly Yoga is about breathing and listening to your body. You would be surprised to hear what mine says to me. Mostly in a litany much like Gordon Ramsay in Hells Kitchen. But I am feeling better from only a few visits so far and can see the improvement in my flexibilty and core strength. I am sleeping better - well at least Lisa has not complained about snoring for a while. So I will continue to go and hopefully improve from my yogi bear status into a bendy twisty version of my once former self. Having seen some videos of yoga masters strutting their stuff I think I will need to work at this for quite some time. Ohmm shanti shanti - Namaste.