Even when you piss me off. Which has been the case this past year as my left shoulder won’t allow me to float through multiple rounds of chaturanga (a low push-up posture) in a sequence I’ve practiced and taught for over a decade. The hot, sweaty practices I used to love don’t agree with my 55-year old post-menopause body either. I’m sick of being hot. I want fans. And, I’m discovering, a big, pathetic excuse to throw in the YogiToes towel once and for all.

But I never do. Because yoga: I still love you

Do anything long enough, and the relationship with it will change. My first couple years practicing were rife with discovery, mastery, and a passion that made conversations with friends and family semi-nauseating (“God, can’t she talk about anything else?” Sorry, no.) I ate up every workshop, advanced training, and teaching gig I could land in studios from Philly to Boston to Hilton Head and beyond. I learned to move students past their comfort zones and into breakthroughs with carefully crafted cues, simple yet powerful sequencing, and a commitment to spending every spare moment getting better at yoga. Both on my mat and at the front of the room.

Every introduction began with..hi, I’m a yoga teacher

I loved yoga so much I taught from a swivel chair in front of a laptop during the pandemic. Staring into 30 little Zoom squares of bodies moving to my words was a virtual high I can only describe now as..odd. I practiced alone with my cats lazing nearby, dreaming about the day studios would once again open and I’d be cranking up the temperature and sweating alongside other yoga devotees.

But that didn’t happen. I moved to the hottest region in Arizona post pandemic and found few opportunities to teach. I mean, most fit people in summertime Arizona were in the pool or at an AC-blasted gym getting their flow on. So I fell in step, swimming in a cool outdoor lap pool in the mornings and adopting a new weight training routine under glorious indoor fans at my local gym. I did this for three years, until my husband and I moved to Santa Fe.

Dear yoga: I miss you

After relocating to Santa Fe, aka “the Enchanted City”, I took a trail walk and got honest with myself. All the B.S. around ‘been there, done that’ with regard to teaching and practicing felt like an excuse to give up on myself and check out of connecting to a new community. Every city I’d lived in up to this point had a special yoga community for me to tap into. Surely there had to be one in an “Enchanted City” for Godssakes.

So I took a few classes around town. The first one at a 100-degree sweat box with no windows. I came out realizing that at this point in my life and in my perfectly capable post-menopause furnace-igniting body that I was a hard NO for this type of practice. Then I found another studio and found Utopia. The place is not only a studio, but a spa, a health food cafe and boutique. And it’s next door to a French Cafe (croissants rewards, yes maam!) And I loved the teacher, and slower-paced class. Jackpot.

Welcome back to teaching and practicing..with a twist

Happy to report I’m practicing again, mostly at home in between tending to an 11-month rescue pup and senior cat while our dream home is still under construction. My practices are also laden with an oft-repeated internal mantra: arm balances and chaturangas not required. And I’m teaching there too. Subbing for now, with a regular class coming in the fall.

My relationship with yoga has indeed changed..to one of love, humility, and respect.