Yoga-in My Way?

Workout: AM Workout from AM and PM Yoga for Beginners
Duration: Approx. 15 minutes

About ten(!) years (and almost twenty pounds ago) I began doing yoga every morning and evening. I found this to be an effective way to begin and end my days, especially as I was experiencing a high degree of stress in my life and wished to avoid more destructive ways of relieving the frustration. I had never been one to use videotapes to workout, having been grown up during a time when it was more in vogue to goof on folks who were "Buns of Steel"-ing, rather than joined them.

Stumbling upon Rodney Yee VHS tapes really changed the way I viewed video workouts, and yoga, in general. I was always (and suppose still am) a little self-conscious about stretching and working out in front of others, so the option of going to the YMCA or other places to do yoga, seemed out of the question. I can't really stretch and I don't look like the videos when I do... but, that's not the point, is it?

Now, years later, I find myself pulling out the old videos (or in the case of his morning, their DVD equivalencies), with the intention of rekindling the flexibility and content I experienced previously. My hope is to balance my running with yoga to 1) increase my flexibility as a means of decreasing the probability of injury, and 2) vary my workouts in a way that continues to promote the unexpected additional outcomes of my running--meditation and contentment.

As I sit here with my dog, Gracie, this morning at 5:30 a.m. cracking open the DVD cases and shaking the dust off the mat, I think I'm ready to get started...

Breathe in, breathe out… YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!