20 hours of yoga in January for Oxfam

Imagine a teenager so unfit and bad at sport that she was forced to do ‘certificate’ PE instead of GCSE… now imagine that girl aged twenty completing twenty hours of yoga in one month! One to two hours of yoga a day seems like a cup of tea to some people but for me some days it was a real struggle and some days I felt like that weak teenage girl who would do anything to get a sick note out of PE. But unlike high school team sports, yoga offers me not only physical fitness but a mindfulness practice that bought me back to the mat everyday, even when my muscles were sore and it just felt like another slow, sluggish day in lockdown. Yoga has ignited a love and determination for fitness that I have never been able to find anywhere else!

My hard work has paid off: I have achieved my goal of raising £100 for Oxfam, feel stronger, and have improved upon yoga positions that I used to dread getting into!

Three main skills I have achieved/improved upon:

Stability: There is no better a feeling then having perfect balance in tree pose! As my self-belief improved my balance improved with it. It was once I realized that it was ok to fall that I started to trust myself and my body more.

Smoother transitions: Improved my legs strength and balance so I can now do things like move from one legged dog to warrior without falling. Better focus so I’m able to get into positions more seamlessly without distraction.

Connection: I feel like as the weeks went by I become so much more in tune with my body, I wasn’t always just copying what was on the video, if it didn’t feel right then I would adjust a position to be more comfortable or so that I could get a deeper stretch.

Three main skills I want to improve upon in future:

Breath: Even through I was mostly following Yoga with Adriene‘s ‘Breathe’ yoga journey, I ironically struggled a lot with being mindful with my breath. This is something I definitely want to improve in future as when I did dip into moments of moving with my breath it felt like I was getting the most out of my practice.

Basic positions: When you do downward dog ten times within one session it is easy to end up not doing it right every time. This especially so with the plank position, where I struggled to keep reminding myself that my back should be lower and my neck un-crunched etc. I want to practice the basic positions on their own in more detail to make sure I’m getting the most out of them.

Deeping stretches: This is something that will come with practice and patience and making sure I never force myself to stretch further than I’m ready to.

Tips for anyone planning to embark on a yoga journey:

Look after your hands and wrists: Doing yoga everyday is going to make them ache a lot, and although they will build strength overtime, I recommend massaging them after every workout. Also, if you follow Yoga with Adriene‘s videos she frequently gives helpful tips on how to relieve tension in the wrist area during your workout.
It’s okay to take a day off: Even if this means that you have to do two hours the next day to catch up what you have missed, it’s important to listen to your body when it tells you that you need to rest. Overtime I naturally learnt to distinguish when I actually needed rest as opposed to just being lazy.
Stretch through the ache: although sometimes it’s important to allow aches and pains time to recover, I found that if I had something simple like a tight shoulder or an aching leg, doing yoga actually helped to ease my pain. This is something that you have to play by ear and trust your body to know when you need to stop rather than stretching it out.

I’m very proud of myself for my progress so far! I definitely still wouldn’t go so far to call myself a Yogi, but I’m taking the right steps forward. My plan is to do thirty minutes of yoga everyday from now on. I’m very excited to see my progress in the next few months and beyond!