Om_Yoga_Magazine__November_2017

om body om body

om body

Want to try yoga? Let’s K.I.S.S* says Meg Jackson

I

clearly remember the dread I felt

before my first yoga class. I was going

because I wanted arms like Madonna

(circa 1999; see ‘Beautiful Stranger’

video for reference; apparently she got

them by doing a trillion hours of Ashtanga a

day). But even the desire for beautiful biceps,

toned triceps, and deltoids so tight you

could bounce a pound coin off them, wasn’t

enough to get me skipping through those

church hall doors.

The weeks leading up to me finally going

were a whirlwind of paranoia, buying a lot of

Lycra and random bits of kit, annihilating my

eating patterns because I wanted to be thin

for my first class, and reading everything I

could about Ashtanga because you never

know when there might be a test and, y’know,

I didn’t want to stand out as the newbie.

Of course, those weeks also included

convincing myself I couldn’t go this week

and it would make much more sense to

start next week for such convoluted reasons

an EastEnders plot writer would’ve been

proud of me. Top hitters included impending

period; long day at work; eaten too much

lunch; not eaten enough lunch; a teeny tiny

little pain in my leg/arm/tooth/brain; I still

needed to buy more kit...I could go on.

Man. I made it all so flippin’ complicated!

I am very lucky that now, many years since

that first class (I’d like to say I started as a

child...but we all know that’s a lie) I get to

work with hundreds of yoga newbies every

year. Their stories are often all too familiar.

They start with “well I’ve been wanting to try

Keep it simple, silly