When I took the 8 week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course, my group leader once said that for him, doing yoga daily was like "putting his body back together" each morning.
I liked it, but didn't really know how that felt.
Earlier today, I experienced it.
I am in the habit of doing yoga on Sunday mornings now. Its hot yoga, its in my building, and there are 8:30 and 9:45am options. Obviously, I have no excuse not to do this.
I missed the last 2 weeks though. Last week we were in Michigan and the week before, I think I was just too tired and/or sore from my long run. Either way, my body literally was craving yoga. I got up this morning raring to go. Its rare that I notice I'm actually excited to exercise, it used to happen with running but sadly, that hasn't been the case during marathon training. I truly believe that the inherent desire to exercise is what kept me exercising for the past 7 years consistently, so it was really nice that I felt that again for something.
I was having a lot of tightness in my right leg, particularly in the IT band region (the outside of the upper leg between the knee and hip). In yoga we did an exercise where were lie on our backs and raise one leg at a time up to the ceiling, and with a strap with wrap it around our foot and stretch to the right and left sides. I could literally feel my IT band and how much tighter and more difficult it was on the right side compared to the left. I breathed in and stretched it good, and I feel a LOT better now.
At the beginning of yoga, we are often asked to set an intention. Mine today was "stretch out, and heal my body." I feel grateful that I was able to achieve a feeling of doing so.
Yay yoga!
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