dragged

So I’ve been smashing the downward-dogged dick off Yoga recently. The transition from CrossFit to weightlifting (via an intense and traumatic phase of trying to do both) has finally sunk in, and I’m adjusting slowly to dropping the bar between reps and wearing an appropriate level of clothing, which is now necessary because gains.  I’m still finding it weird being able to wear the same clothes to train in more than once, it’s not that I LIKE doing a fuck tonne of washing or anything but it’s more a badge of honor like “I did so much exercise I may as well just burn my fucking clothes right now” kinda thing. Don’t get me wrong, what I’m doing now isn’t any easier, it’s just different, and I’m bad at it all. To account for pulling and jerking the dick off everything (as in barbells, I’m not on Tinder soz) five days a week I decided I needed like some sort of opposite thing to do, anything but cardio because not doing that anymore is literally one of the BEST things about weightlifting (along with the meme quality). Enter YOGA.

Living in Melbourne’s Yoga capital I had literally a zillion options, so I set about making my way around as many trial memberships as possible. I was only two studios deep however when I found The One. The stairs to the entrance read “you are enough”, and on the wall in the Yoga Studio itself it says in gold something about how we don’t perform Yoga to be perfect, but to develop the awareness that we are already enough. This mantra is repeated on the floor in scattered golden letters. The same phrase is written on my bathroom mirror in whiteboard marker and also in my journal like 50 times because it’s my default positive affirmation, along with ‘I am strong’ (literally if you can easily think of DIFFERENT positive affirmation every day then I applaud you). Anyway I have this thing with gold shit and signs so obviously I sign up, and obviously also commit to 21 Yoga sessions in 21 days, because if you’re not going in balls deep then why would you even bother with anything ever.

I’ve always felt like the way I look suits CrossFit to a tee. Like when I started doing it people were like ‘Oh, of course’, much the same way people used to think that people with a lot of tattoos would either rob them or fuck them. (I have zero interest in both) Having a lot of tattoos and doing CrossFit is so normal that I’m no longer ‘the chick with the tattoos’, because that description would lend itself to the question ‘Which one?’ Anyway, in Yoga I’m back to being the chick with the tattoos. And the muscles. And the giant legs and ass. The other girls have pretty, delicate legs and asses, and perform perfect tree poses on their pretty delicate feet which are decorated with thoughtfully placed flowers or stars. The soles of my feet look like I’ve walked bare-foot through the Apocalypse, and years ago at a party I tattooed my own toes on a dare (initiated by myself, obviously) with large, scrawling letters which are now blurred, the ink now spread drunkenly in the very manner they were inflicted. I’ve never had a pedicure because literally the state of my feet is that shameful and I would know 100% that the Thai ladies at the nail place would without a doubt be talking about my piece of shit feet as I sat there oblivious…“This why she live alone with cat she has tattooed on hand.”

My favorite instructor is called Amy, which seems to be all of their names but this Amy just gets me. She has long brown hair like cool Esther and says shit like ‘more internal rotation of the humeral heads’ which I find hilarious but also I am so impressed with the way she unrepentently forces her technical jargon on people, like YOU WILL LEARN from her, it’s not even an option. She comes around and adjusts me and I feel so special that she gives enough fucks about me to make sure that my hips are squared off and she refuses to let me lurch unevenly at the back of the room like an epileptic wildebeest. ‘It’s OK to fall’ she says as I hover precariously in my left side aeroplane, and for some reason this causes hot tears to prick at the back of my eyes. I spend like 99% of my time in a state of panic that what I’m doing isn’t enough, that I won’t amount to or achieve anything, and will die alone in my rented apartment and Graham will survive for months on my giant legs. The remaining 1% is like a vague glimmer of not giving a fuck, which allows me to breathe for a second in between mouthfuls of Halo top and episodes of reality baking shows.

There’s no leader-board in the studio, I don’t look at or talk to anyone else, although being there does make me want to smile at people if we make eye contact. I feel invisible in the best possible way, no one’s enviously eyeing my strong transition into plank pose or smirking at my embarrassing attempts at binding. What’s outside of your own mat doesn’t exist to you in that 60-75 mins. It’s the ultimate stay-in-your-lane experience. Yesterday, Day 6/ 21, I learnt from another Amy that a lot of hip tightness comes from holding onto things emotionally as well as physically, and although previously this kind of airy fairy bullshit would send me running (let’s be honest, walking)  back to the stoic rationale of the barbell, for some reason this is like a flash going off in my tight, tired brain, and all of the anxiety and tension and fuck giving melts away and in that moment I believe the words on the floor next to my mat that I am enough.

‘Let go or be dragged’ says Amy #3 (who’s name isn’t actually Amy but easily could be) as I melt over my bolster and let every fear and worry drift away through the skylight above me. They’ll be back obviously but that’s OK, I now have a mat-sized space in the world that is fucking oblivious to everything except my enough-ness. Whether I make it to Nationals or my cat feasts on my lonely corpse (or potentially both) I will keep repeating these three golden words until I fully believe them, not just when they’re staring up at me from the Yoga floor.