Immediately Hooked on Yoga

One day about 7 years ago I was scrolling instagram and saw a yoga pose. (It was crow pose or Kakasana) It looked so easy, so I tried to do it. (With absolutely no experience in yoga at all…) and I couldn’t even get close! I fell trying, and began to laugh at myself. But in that moment, I decided that I was going to teach myself these poses. I was immediately hooked on yoga and the fact that it was so challenging, somehow made me want to do it even more, probably because it looked “so easy”. This really came at a time when I needed some kind of practice to help me regulate my own nervous system after having a child for the first time, whom I was alone with for the first 9 months of her life as my husband was in Afghanistan. I would even go so far as to say that yoga helped me stay strong mentally and physically during that stressful time in my life.

I began learning what is called sun salutation; it is a series of simple postures that easily turn into a yoga flow. It seemed to be the more I learned the poses, then eventually I was able to “flow” easily; which essentially means going from one poster to the next in a somewhat smooth transition. Of course this gets easier with practice.

I have been practicing yoga on and off for many years and I am so thankful for its ability to help me transmute whatever I’m going through in life. When I’m feeling excited my practice is flowy and fun, and when I’m feeling down or thinking about something in particular, the experience is much slower, more intentional and helps me get into my body and out of my head.

Anyone can teach themselves yoga, especially with all the free content on video sharing platforms available today. I also have videos on my TikTok (@christina_sutra).

One of my favorite forms of therapy is going to the gym, walking or running on the treadmill and then going into an empty tennis court and just let my body move. I often like to record my yoga sessions so that I can see how my alignment is, as well as how much I’m improving over time.

These are a few images of when I first began yoga and a couple after I had been practicing for a few years.