From A Skeptic's Journey Through The Yoga Experience
I must first make a full
disclosure. My first experience with
yoga was an absolute disaster. It was spring, 2009. I decided that I needed to
take an exercise class to improve my muscle and joint flexibility. As a long-time
distance runner, flexibility, or the lack thereof, was a chronic problem for
me. This comes with the runner’s turf, especially for male runners.
I searched the course catalogue
of a nearby college for such a class. The course that caught my eye was
beginning yoga. It was the only PE class at a time and day that fit my work
schedule. I signed up for it. But I felt trepidation and unease. I quickly realized why. I carried a train
station full of baggage about what yoga was, and who yoga appealed to. Put
bluntly, I thought it was too white, too feminine, too exotic, too taxing, and
too removed from my life. The storehouse of negatives I brought to yoga did not
bode well. In fact, it almost guaranteed
that the negatives would inevitably become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
