Lessons learned from a Yoga Bear

My Boyo is an inspiration to me.

It doesn’t hurt that I dreadfully missed stretching during pregnancy. I would watch my sister doing things like the child’s pose, and it was like my body could remember what it was like to do that pose (badly, I should say) and I could feel it, but of course I couldn’t actually do it. Of course, most yoga has been like that with me because I have not consistently practiced the movements, but now I watch my Boyo learning to use his body and it’s a reminder that it does take practice to learn something new.

Watching him, I’ve learned some of the following lessons:

1. Stretch every morning immediately upon waking.
2. Your body can do more than what it currently does; you just have to work at it consistently.
3. Rest and help your body digest what it just learned.
4. Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it can’t be fun.

It always amazes me how much better I feel if I stretch before I get out of bed, but I always forget to do it. Or I did. Boyo hasn’t been taught to do that but when he wakes up he stretches – every single time. I love watching him do it and it’s reminded me that I should be doing that too.

I sort of covered the second one above, but Boyo keeps working at things – lifting his legs, reaching for objects, and every day he does a bit more a bit better and it reminds me that right now I might not be able to make the transitions from the sun salutations into the cobra pose into downward facing dog, but if I keep working at it – I will.

I’ve been occasionally doing sessions on yogaglo with my sister and the instructor mentions doing savasana, the corpse pose, to allow your body to digest what it has learned: that your muscles will actually store information as you rest.

My Boyo works hard. He smiles all the way through it and even when he gets frustrated the smiles typically aren’t far behind!