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Tiffany Sanchez

Professor Reider

English 101

27 Aug 2019

Correct Yoga

It was the soothing sound of silent peace going through my ears as I walked in. I had

recently dropped a stressful art class and was in search of a new course, so I picked up a class I

didn’t even know existed: yoga. My new yoga class started today. With my new class on my,

mind I made sure I would not get left behind. To do so, I made sure to start precisely on time.

The only minor inconvenience was I was now stretching my minutes as back to back as can be,

which was new to me. I woke up routinely at five A.M. to go running with my cross-country

team and I had to made sure to finish twenty minutes before my new class. I backed out from my

downtown parallel parking spot in bumper to bumper traffic and proceeded to drive straight to

campus in my Solara. In my thoughts, I began to wonder how this strange new class would affect

me; hopefully positively and with that attitude I was sure to have a good start to this class.

I turned off of Pecos Road by 6:50 and circled into a new parking lot closest to the Agave

building. That was also a building I have never been in because I always parked in the Iron Wall

parking lot, but that day I parked here in the Agave lot. I found suitable tree-shaded parking, and

reversed into the two pleated white lines. I switched out my Blue Brooks Ghost running shoes

and dampened socks for a pair of my older brother’s black Nike slides he had gifted me when he

grew out of them. I Switched into my yoga attire, which consisted of a pair of Lulu’s in the color
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of jubilee and a soft XXL thrifted tee. I placed a thick quarter sized mint into my mouth to cure

runner’s breath and exited my car. As I walked with my adrenaline-pumped legs to class I

worried about being on time, I looked down to my rose gold Fitbit watch the time read 6:58 in

big bold white numbers. Flip clack, flip clack went the echoing sounds of my sandals hitting the

clean pavement.

I entered this giant concrete building, and I could tell it was a recently built by the sunlit

halls and clean walls with modern furniture and outlets built into the side. I was impressed. I

didn’t know this was here! I walked into the valley of zen. When I entered, I was immediately

greeted with a gentle welcome by the instructor. I soon fell into line by placing down my

Manduka yoga mat. I was straight across from my instructor between two older women, one was

clearly in her twenties another in her early thirties. They had been waiting for class to begin. I

noticed they had these pretty decent sized blocks next to them. I set my bag down and slipped

my slides off. I turned around and noticed this different hue of light coming from this

excessively tall, yet narrow for its height, door frame. I walked across the room of my new peers

and entered what seemed to be some type of yoga storage closet. Just like the door frame, it was

narrow but wide in length, leading across at least 30 feet in depth. I turned my head to the left

and saw the same blocks my peers had. I proceeded to grab two; one was light royal blue and

another was octopus purple. When my hand grasped the blocks, I realized they were an

interesting texture; they were firm yet soft.

While I snapped in and out of my own train of thought, I noticed the narrow storage room

became filled with more people looking for the same objects. I quickly got out of that closet and

proceeded to head back to my area, I turned my airplane mode on my phone to make sure it
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would stay silent and tucked it back into my Lululemon reusable shopping bag along with my

keys and everything I thought I might have needed. This consisted of a folder for the syllabus, a

Rae Dunn stylish notebook, with thoughts written across it for notes, a planner for due dates

along side with organic essential oil based hand sanitizer. I really should use more and pens and

pencils to write things down. Fortunately, the teacher was really into her practice and did not

believe in such unsuitable practices. She was solely focused on one thing, yoga! It was now

seven A.M. We began with the instructor talking about her own set of rules and guidelines to

follow from the syllabus, the allowances of makeup work, and days missed. These seemed pretty

reasonable ...I thought to myself. Soon after we began our practice, she would led in the front of

the room on her mat. We mirrored on our mats. We started on our knees, sitting onto the back of

our Achilles heels. We then proceeded to lean forward until our foreheads kissed the front of the

mat. Our hands slithered out like straighted snakes. We began to awaken our inner peace. We

drew back our arms, sitting up only to go back onto all fours, with a horizontal spine; the teacher

moved us into a cat cow position. This required us to breathe in with elongated breaths and tuck

our central spine inward toward the ground, lifting our heads up to the sky exposing our throats

to the air. When we needed to suck in for air, we became the cow by rounding our spines up in

the air and tucking our hips and heads down and repeated the cat cow exercise 2- 3 more times.

We did other twists and turns, which all resulted from the same technique-muscle endurance.

Class soon ended with a bow and smile.

I packed up my things and left with this in mind. Wow! I've never been offered that type

of instruction on a campus before. I would have never had the chance to experience that and get

credit for it as well if it wasn’t for this EP and trying things outside of my own comfort zone and

I’m glad I did. In these poses, we’re taught to be gentle with our bodies, we also need to go soft
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with the pose so that we don’t become submerged full of intermediate pain! But to be firm

enough in the pose to be sturdy and stable to hold its rewarding value it has within us to motivate

us. To do so, we must continue pushing the stretch further, not only physically but pushing

ourselves mentally, as well. Just like in cross country, how we use our minds to increase the

distance of our stride to go further not only mentally, but physically as well. A delicate balance

between keeping one’s form firm while pushing oneself for a better personal record. I personally

experienced this with my own thoughts of the class. I was stable but gentle, like my blocks. That

was what today’s adventure had taught me to be, firm enough in my choices to decide how to

push outside of my comfort zone, while being gentle enough for me to allow commencement of

my new decisions.