Weight Loss Journey. Ashtanga Yoga, About Body and Mind
Weight Loss Journal 7
My daughter and I were both drawn to yoga early in our lives. I learned yoga positions as a teenager, and she joined an after school yoga club in junior high school. Yet, it wasn’t until we were living in Nicaragua that we started to practice Ashtanga yoga on a regular basis.
While in Nicaragua we met a young man from Austria. He was a nurse and yoga teacher. We became quick friends, and in exchange for the rides we gave him to the surfing beaches, he gave us private yoga lessons. Yoga was very difficult for me and I was upset about how out of shape I was. I didn’t even make it through my first lesson. My daughter took to it as though she had been practicing yoga all her life. Our friend said she was a “natural.”
He soon had to return to Austria and my daughter continued to practice yoga on her own. While in Nicaragua she made friends with a family from California that also practiced Ashtanga yoga and then traveled to California herself to study at a yoga studio that taught Mysore-style Ashtanga yoga. She learned a lot from these teachers and she loved it!
From there she decided to go to Mysore, India, to study with the Ashtanga Master himself. She lived in India for a while where she studied Ashtanga yoga and then went on to travel through India and Morocco before coming back to Nicaragua.
When she returned, she started to teach me Ashtanga yoga with an infinite amount of patience and encouragement. We practiced every day and I did really well. Our friend from California spent a month with us. He started classes in our home for travelers looking for a place to do their yoga practice. My daughter also started helping people in class and when our friend left she took over.
A year later, I could assist with classes and lead some of them myself. I grew strong and very flexible. My muscles looked leaner and longer and I lost weight. Yet by far, the best result of my practice, was how I felt. Yoga brought me a sense of calm, clarity, and focus, that I had not had before.
My daughter and I opened a vegetarian breakfast cafe and yoga studio in Nicaragua and we lived there for almost 2 years. We drove our old Jeep back to the U.S. when it was time for her to begin her college studies at U.C. Berkeley. When we returned, we both taught yoga at a small studio in Connecticut for a while before moving to California, where she would be going to college.
My daughter continued to practice yoga at the California yoga studio although it was difficult for her to find the time with her studies. Moving to California for me was a huge transition. I’d grown used to the slower pace of life in Nicaragua and it was amazing how quickly I fell right back into the fast-paced stressful American lifestyle.
I got a job in the school system and had to get there really early in the mornings. By the time I got home in the evenings I was exhausted and didn’t have the energy to do my hour long yoga practice. So I let my practice go by the wayside when I needed it most!
I made a big mistake by thinking that if I couldn’t do my entire one to two hour practice, it wouldn’t be worth doing ANY yoga at all. I should have continued to do a 10 minute practice every day. The “Sun Salutations” alone are enough to keep your body in tune. That would have been enough to keep me strong and flexible. I didn’t do that.
But I still hope to return to this wonderful practice that keeps both your mind and body balanced and in tune.
*Please continue reading in -
Weight Loss Journal 8
