Jonathan Peterson ‘23
Staff Editor
Vinyasa. Crow’s pose. Warrior one and two. If any of these terms mean something more to you than having some vague connection with yoga, you are more prepared than I was for SBA’s Wellness Wednesday Yoga, which takes place every week at 7:30 p.m. I joined the Zoom call at 7:31, fashionably late, and totally unsure of what to expect. Hidden behind the safe, warm, gray Zoom tile of anonymity, which I knew would keep my yoga failures and foibles hidden from the gaze of the collected and accomplished instructor, Eliza Robertson ’22, I pulled the trigger and began my career as a yogi.
Suffice it to say I was not expecting what I entered into on numerous levels. The first surprise came when, upon joining, I realized there were only two others in the call—the instructor and a 1L braver than I, evidenced by her active participation in Zoom’s video features. This was not a level of intimacy I had anticipated. Can one, in good faith, not participate in a pre-yoga discussion when you make up one-third of the participants? Is there yoga etiquette that covers this situation? Should I have studied? Muted and unseen, I experienced an internal struggle the gravity of which few men encounter in their lives.
Ultimately, the choice was a simple one—inaction is always more comfortable than action, and I am certainly a fellow with quite a bit of inertia. Thus, my level of yoga participation will probably come as no surprise to my readers, but news of my actual attendance may be quite the surprise to my fellow participants (participant?), who neither saw nor heard hide nor hair of me throughout our transformative hour-long-experience. However, this fact is probably for the best. My yoga experience was anything but graceful; full of sweat, shaking legs, poorly timed breaths, and a miserable attempt at “playing around with the crow’s pose,” my participation would have only added comedic value to the whole venture.
This is not to say, however, that yoga did not bring value into my own life. While I may not offer much to yoga or the yogi community, I found immense enjoyment in the activity. Law school is hard. I’m a wee little 1L. There’s a lot on my plate, and there’s little better for dealing with that overburdened plate than an hour of low intensity yet somehow very taxing physical activity, which also incorporates a mindfulness component. Yoga makes the muscles feel alive, allows the unruly and unfocused mind to be tamed for a short time, and narrows your existence into the stretch of ligaments, the tired-yet-unfinished tremble of legs, and the slow roll of a droplet of sweat descending down your forehead and across the brow, landing with a soundless splash upon the ground, the mat, the carpet, wherever you choose to be in the moment. It is one of those special activities that requires both physical presence and presence of mind, which is what I found to be yoga’s true draw—its ability to draw me away from the stresses of life and really be mentally present, at least for an hour.
Yoga manages to do this, I believe, thanks to two aspects of the activity. The first is the intense stillness of the holds. Yoga is not like other exercises. It isn’t running. It isn’t swimming. It isn’t squatting or deadlifting or jumping rope or anything. Yoga is yoga. Yoga is still, quiet, and collected. It is predicated on large fluid movements that require precise control and strength to complete in the slow and effortless fashion of the public-place-yoga-dude we all make fun of under our breaths, but whose confidence and poise we are secretly envious of as we shuffle along the sidewalk. The intense stillness of the holds creates, as I quickly learned, quite the strain on one’s muscles. At first, the pose feels simple. Pretend I’m sitting in a chair? I’ve done this with a chair a thousand times, no problem. But, after you’ve cycled through your self-made chair a few times, the legs of that chair—your very own legs—quickly lose their former stability. They ache, and they burn, and they wobble, and there is nothing you can think about but the physical sensations coursing through you. You become the chair, albeit a chair in substantial pain, as the instructor calmly repeats breathing instructions. The focus required and the physical strain inherent in doing these intensely still movements over a long and repetitive period of time is part of what enables yoga to pull one away from other stressors in the moment. It demands both your physical and mental presence.
The second aspect of yoga that allows this is the breathing. The entire time, while straining to complete pose after pose, your breath is something you must keep under control. Again, this activity requires being mentally present to the degree that it does not allow one to worry about outside stressors. It is one thing to breathe while sitting here, writing this piece. It is an entirely other task to focus on one’s breathing, control it, and fall into a conscious rhythm. And even that process doesn’t compare to achieving those results while also engaging in the sort of physical strain which accompanies yoga. To do so requires a level of control that I do not yet possess, but I find inspirational. And to do so requires constant mental presence. There is no room between the ears for tomorrow’s reading while this second’s breathing is on the line.
In summation, despite my lack of experience and the unexpected intimacy of the zoom call, I firmly enjoyed my time and would absolutely recommend yoga to anyone interested. I, personally, will certainly be returning next week. Who knows, perhaps this time I’ll turn my camera on.
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jtp4bw@virginia.edu