A few days before 2016 arrived, the venerable Angie posted a link to something called “Yoga Camp” on her Facebook page. She generally has good ideas, so I clicked to find out what it was all about. It was a 30-day at-home yogathon hosted by a cute Texan named Adriene, and it involved daily yoga and daily mantras, and the Yoga Camp page called it a “bootcamp for your mind, your body and your soul,” which sounded pretty woo-woo to me. But it was allegedly accessible to the out-of-shape and inflexible and most important of all it was free.
So I signed up.
I signed up under the assumption that I would ignore the mantras and that I wouldn’t be able to do the majority of the work and that I’d get discouraged and quit before Day 5. That’s a terrible way to start any project, isn’t it? Sometimes I have a very bad attitude. By the first day of Yoga Camp, though, I’d decided that not only was I going to do this project for my physical health, I was going to try to adjust my attitude as well. I was going to at least try to downward-dog and mantra my way through the entire 30 days.
And now here it is mid-January, and I’ve done yoga every day for the past 17 days. Even more surprising, I’m setting my alarm clock a little earlier and looking forward to getting up and greeting the day with a little yoga.
Every morning I go down to the basement, I clean up the Disney Infinity figures that Pete has inevitably left on the floor, and I move the coffee table. I crank up the TV and the Xbox and turn the dial to the Yoga with Adriene channel, and then — here’s the kicker — I do my best. I’ve fallen over a few times, and I’ve been unable to follow along once or twice. But I’m trying.
The multicolored Pottery Barn rug I picked up a few years ago for $20 at a yard sale does a serviceable job as a yoga mat, Marsha T. Cat likes to sit and groom herself in the most obtrusive place she can find, and I still can’t fold myself into a child’s pose. But every now and then I’m able to move in a way I was sure I wouldn’t be able to move, and every now and then that daily mantra business — I embrace, I create, I enjoy, I am bold, I am present, I am alive — actually clicks.
So here it is mid-January, and I’m more than half way through Yoga Camp. My body feels a little better, and my mind and my soul — woo-woo though it may be — are both feeling better as well. I don’t feel any more flexible, but I feel a lot more peaceful. I very much wish Yoga Camp could go on forever, and I’m really happy that I took a chance on it.