One of my longtime readers expressed interest in hearing more about my morning yoga practice, so here you go.

I flirted with a home yoga practice in 2000, when I was living in Olympia. I’d started taking vinyasa classes and was just starting to get the hang of sun salutations and wanted to do them at home in the mornings. I didn’t quite have the muscle memory down, however, and I spent most of my mornings shuffling around trying to remember if I’d already done the right side and was I breathing in or out on this move and wtf?

Then I went to Gathering of the Tribes and when I came back, all cracked out and disheveled, I realized that cracked out + home yoga practice = no, I’ll just sleep more instead.

No yoga then for me for a while. I didn’t get back into it until summer of 2004 when our friend Joshua offered one free class a week at the studio where he was training to be a teacher. Andreas and I seemed to be the only friends who regularly took him up on the offer (come on: FREE YOGA!) and I quickly remembered how much I liked it. Despite having no previous experience, Dre caught up pretty quickly and was soon popping up into all sorts of inversions and handstands. (Which I still, uh, can’t do.)

After the free classes ended, we kept going. My favorite was the 7am classes. There’s just no better way to wake up than yoga. Then the studio stopped offering the 7am classes (Dre and I were often the only ones there) and I started going to Sunday morning Ashtanga primary series classes. They’re extra long (almost two hours, with shivasana) and I liked the series.

Then we moved, and suddenly the yoga studio went from an 8 minute drive to a 20+ minute drive. I keep trying to make it to classes (I took a morning series this fall for twice a week 7am classes), but it’s harder and harder to justify the drive.

So, this summer I started my own morning practice. The goal is to wake up and do yoga, 5 days a week. Even if it’s only one sun salutation, I do it. Every morning. The best mornings are when Dre does it with me and we do the first 20 minutes of the primary series, and then whatever mat asanas we feel like (we’re both big fans of pigeon). But some mornings (like today!) it’s all I can do to haul my tired ass out of bed and do exactly one sun salutation. And some mornings, that’s just fine.

The effects of this morning practice have been interesting and subtle. I like the mental satisfaction of knowing I’m doing it (determination! discipline!). As for physical results, well, as discussed before I am hyperflexible. I’ve always been magical gumby-girl, but now I’m bordering on rubber band freak.

I also find myself stretching a lot during the day … my coworkers probably think I’m a freak because when ever I stand up to talk to someone I’m always propping a foot up on someone’s desk and stretching over my leg, or standing on one foot and tipping over to stretch out a hip flexor. When I’m writing my book, I get up to stretch around periodically, under some slightly woo-woo delusion that by increasing blood flow to my muscles I’ll increase blood flow to my brain, too.