My History With Yoga

I started practicing yoga when my oldest son was a toddler. I had been running for years, but one day, I came home from a run with knee pain. I thought I had sprained something, so I went to the doctor, who ran some tests and found nothing wrong and referred me to an orthopedic surgeon.

Before taking that step, I looked for other options.

First, I went to a chiropractor. My first appointment, I hobbled in on my painful knee, and he ran some tests and used a little hammer on the shoulder opposite the pained knee. And I walked out of there. With no pain at all. 

I was convinced and energized. There were clearly ways to help myself other than surgery. 

But. Chiropractic care requires repetitive care. And every time I went in to see this guy, he made my knee feel better, but he also regaled his latest conspiracy theory. The government was running a sex trafficing ring out of elite elementary schools. They were also controlling the weather. Mexico has already cured cancer, but the entire American medical system was trying to have those people killed so they could keep making money off chemotherapy. 

It was not the relaxing environment I wanted it to be. So I stopped going.

The YMCA I belonged to had yoga classes every Tuesday and Thursday night. So, I decided I’d give that a try. Again, I saw immediate results. I told the yoga teacher I had knee problems I was trying to fix, and she put me into a pose that opened up the knee socket in a way I had never felt before. It was an immediate pain release. 

For two years, I went to her classes faithfully. In the class were cancer survivors, who used the class to get stronger, a woman who’d been in a car accident and was trying to ease her body into recovery, and elite athletes who ran marathons, and used the class to strengthen and recover. I was not the only person who had come to the class to heal.

Sometimes, I told myself that my knee was better. I’d cured it. And I’d skip a week or two of classes. And then the pain would come back, reminding me that this was not a short game. It was a long one.

Then my yoga teacher retired. I literally cried at the end of her last class. She had helped me through something. I relied on her. And now, she was leaving me. When I went to hug her, she patted me on the shoulder and gave me a smirk, a clear indication that she thought I should suck it up.

Since then, I’ve tried to find a yoga class that I like as much. But most yoga teachers tell you to listen to your body. Do what you need to do. My favorite yogi was more like my middle school basketball coach. If you screwed up, she’d call you out. “Kim! Straighten your arms!” she’d often yell when I was not correctly in Downward Dog. Just like my middle school basketball coach, she expected better from me. And I loved her for it. 

I had been trying to convince my husband to do yoga with me. But he saw the practice the way much of the world sees it – as a good stretch. When I hear that, I am insulted on yoga’s behalf. It’s not stretching. It’s energizing your body to gain strength through subtle movements. And more often than not, you get pushed to your limits and end up sweating your balls off. It’s not the delicate process some people seem to think it is.

During the pandemic, I cancelled my YMCA membership. For obvious reasons. I began taking walks and hikes with friends instead. A lot. Because it was my last social outlet. Sometimes, my husband and I would take walks. Sometimes the kids would join us. But it was never a regular activity for the rest of my family.

Then I found DDPY.

A few years prior, I had watched a youtube video of a paratrouper who had hurt his back jumping out of airplanes. His doctors told him he’d never walk again. It was inspiring and emotional. 

Flash forward to the pandemic, and I saw another inspiring video of a guy getting into shape, with the help of a former wrestler. I never followed wrestling, so I didn’t recognize the coach. But I did recognize another guy he was working with – the paratrouper from the inspiring video I’d seen years before.

This is the program my husband and I do now. And here are the results:

January Results: Yoga