Rugby to Yoga

It's been a tough week in the World of Jo. It started with Grey Cup weekend, and my mind revisited every detail of the happenings of one year ago, from the fender-bender on Friday to the feelings I had before the fire, when everything was great, and then the feelings I had on Monday morning after the fire, when the world crashed down. I found some Facebook posting I wrote literally right before I went to bed that night, telling a friend, "See you in the morning", looking forward to teaching spin class, and then hours later I was kneeling in the snow, scooping with my bare hands as I tried to douse the flames from the gas cans left on our front porch.

It hurts to even write about it now, but as the week has progressed, I have thought about it less and less, but that gave my brain more time to focus on my physical problems.

I went to a course on the weekend to get my Personal Training Certification, and it was an awesome course, but I felt like such a wimp. Rewind a year ago when I would kill the spin classes, I would always lift heavy, and would also try to keep up with the men (and often succeeded!). Now I can't lift more than 25 pounds, my core is as weak as it was after I had kids, and I had to keep saying, "I can't do that, no, I can't do that either, I can't jump too many times in a row, I get vertigo easily (which I believe is an after-effect of the anaesthesia), etc. etc." Last year at FIS training I was the strongest, most fit person there (or so I thought, anyway), and this year I felt like the weakest person there (no chance to keep up with the boys anymore). I thought to myself, "WHY AM I EVEN HERE????"

And then, Zumba class, which is silly to begin with, but it's a workout and Yvonne is an awesome instructor. I guess at one point I twisted the wrong way and felt it through my abdomen, couldn't even lift my left leg without pain, and thought, "I CAN'T EVEN DO ZUMBA WITHOUT GETTING HURT." Zumba, a class for the old and overweight (I know, that's mean, but that's my perception), and I hurt myself. I broke down and had to leave class, and later soothed myself with a Turtle Pecan Blizzard.

However, this morning I went to yoga, and even though my hips are still ridiculously tight, my instructed commented that she has seen improvement in just two weeks. It made me think, maybe it's time to stop having the mentality that we need to kill ourselves in order to be "healthy and fit" - maybe at some point it's more important to stretch and release our sore muscles so that everyday tasks are easier. After all, at some point we all need to settle down a bit and stop acting like we're 20 - bodies age, it's a fact of life.

So now I'm rethinking things - maybe I won't ever be "skinny", since I would have to work out like a crazy person to achieve that "ideal body", as I've done it before, but sure wouldn't have called myself "healthy" at the time. Maybe yoga is better for me than running, maybe walking is better than running, maybe endurance weightlifting is better than trying to outlift he guys.

Before, I thought that I shouldn't be a personal trainer since I can't do all of the "tough stuff" anymore, but now I think that I might be a great personal trainer since a lot of what people need is just to be active and to take care of their bodies, and now I can relate, since I'm not so focussed on working out like crazy, but instead on what my body needs to feel good.

It's been a tough week, but a good one - lots of soul-searching for me in the past seven days. It's time to embrace what I have, instead of mourning over what I've lost.

Yay yoga!