400 Consecutive Days of Yoga. It feels so much bigger than a year. It is so much bigger than the practice. It is my connection. My foothold. My sanity. My release. My breath. My meditation. My center. My exercise.
But, lets rewind to the original Day 1.
May 1, 2017
I started my yoga practice seven years ago… I think. It was something that I’d always wanted to do, I had never found a type of exercise that I really connected with and enjoyed and thought that yoga might be the one. I found excuse after excuse, but, when I finally walked through the door of Pure Yoga & Pilates in Wilmington, DE, I was hooked. My goal at that time was to get to at least one class a week. It became an escape, a haven, a way to practice and model self-care. I had come to a place in my life where I needed to better take care of myself and to show that to others and I did; by being open with my students when trying to schedule a meeting that there were times I wouldn’t be available so that I could get to yoga. I was not perfect in my weekly attendance, but, I made it work. Of course, there were times I didn’t want to go, but, I would remind myself that I was always grateful that I did. I also didn’t beat myself up when I didn’t make it; to me, that would be the antithesis of yoga.
And, it’s easy to get out of practice. I move, or start a new job, or have a baby and it would take a long time (too long) or another life change to start up again. I always knew it would be good for me and I was always so thankful when I got back to the mat. Prenatal yoga (both incorporating appropriate adjustments into my regular classes for the first two trimesters and a dedicated prenatal yoga class during my last trimester) we an important part of pregnancy for me. It took over a year to get back to the mat after my son was born, being a mom and working full-time didn’t leave much flexibility, but, when I left my full-time position I was back on the mat. It became part of my weekly routine. And, I’ve added to it, making a strong effort to get to 2 classes a week the last couple months.
As I look to the future, I know there will soon come a time where I can’t make it to a studio with any regularity again, but, I don’t want to lose my practice. That’s where the internet comes in, and my new appreciation for YouTube. So, I’ve decided on a challenge for myself: to practice yoga every day for the month of May. I’ll still go to my weekly classes (hopefully twice a week) and on the other days I’ll do a video online.
Today it started. May 1st, the first day of yoga every day for the month of May.
And then, on May 5th, I finished cooking Shabbat dinner and took out the trash. My ankle rolled, there was a pop. I hobbled back into the house, grabbed some ice, got the couch and called my doctor’s office: “I think I just broke my foot.” I was right, but I didn’t know how bad. Twelve years earlier I was crossing a street and rolled my ankle. For a week I walked around on it, thinking it was a sprain. Nope, it was a fracture, at the base of the 5th metatarsal of my right foot. When I looked at the x-ray I hardly saw the faint line, the fracture. Six weeks in a boot, taking it off to sleep and drive, and I was good to go. In 2017, it was the base of the 5th metatarsal on the left foot, but I wasn’t so lucky. For three months I was non-weight bearing, primarily using a knee scooter to get around, going up and down the stairs on my tush, sleeping in the boot (I refused a traditional cast). Somehow managing to take care of a toddler. In retrospect, it’s all kind of a blur.
After 3 months I was cleared to start putting weight (walking) on my foot 50% of the time. This meant two things to me: I no longer had to go up and down the stairs on my tush and I could go back to yoga. I had been practicing at Oceanfront Yoga in Virginia Beach for a few years at that point and knew that the Chair Yoga class would be perfect for me. I was thrilled to get back to the studio and adored the seniors in the class. It gave me a space to start healing, both physically and mentally. One day, the amazing instructor and co-owner of the studio, Melanie, posted a photo of me on Instagram with the caption, “Where there’s a will there’s a way.” A few months later, with the encouragement of my physical therapist, I was back on the mat in “regular” classes and regaining strength and confidence.
By mid-December I felt that I had healed enough to have another go at a 30-Day challenge. I was ready. I continued to go to classes at Oceanfront, but, also had fallen in love with the Yoga With Adriene YouTube channel. The videos on this channel had a lot of variation, and I love the intention, meditation, and thought behind everything that went into these videos. Every January the channel has a 30-day challenge that is accompanied by an email with further insight and encouragement each day. It was a great way to start. And, I knew that the time was growing nearer that I would be moving and no longer have the access or ability to get to classes in a studio regularly. By the end of January I was hooked.
So, I continued. The month milestones were great, but, it was when I stopped to count the days that I really felt a sense of accomplishment. As I drew closer to a year, I was excited, but what felt more meaningful was what I reach today – 400 days. For some reason that feels more significant than a year. It felt that way as the one-year mark approached, but, even more so because on Day 376 I broke my foot again. You read that right: 20 months after the break that, literally, took me off my foot for months, I fractured the base of the 5th metatarsal on my left foot. Again. And, because it happened on a Friday night, I had to wait all weekend to get a diagnosis beyond what the ER doctor could tell me. I’m lucky this time. It’s a pretty minor fracture – just 6 weeks in the boot - I wouldn’t have even seen the fracture on the x-ray if I didn’t know what I was looking at this time. (Is there something to be said about 2 fractures in nearly the same spot in less than 2 years? Probably. I’ll explore that another time.)
I decided not to give up my practice. I’ve done a lot of the same Chair Yoga and Yoga at your Desk videos over the last 3 weeks, but I can’t stop. I did more research and dove deeper into YouTube to find some videos designed for people with foot injuries. I’ve figured out new modifications to add to those I used when I went back to the Chair Yoga class last time.
This is what those 400 days have done for me. Physically, I need the practice. Even if it is only a 6-minute practice before bed, I need to do sometime to move and stretch my body. Without it, I am physically restless, I don’t feel right, my body isn’t my own. Right now, I’m particularly miserable, because, no matter what I’m doing, my body wants to move in the ways that it knows it can and it feels best when it does. I’m stronger than I was. In the last 6 weeks of the year I found that I was able to do poses that I had always struggled with or scared me too much to really try. While I celebrated when I could hop between plank and down dog for the first time post-the first left foot break, it was even more meaningful when I found how to get into side-plank for the first time ever. Or that I can hold plank repeatedly throughout a practice.
More important than the physical, is the emotional. These consecutive days of practice have gotten me through packing my life; moving cross-country with my son; moving into my parents’ house (and sharing a room with my 2.5 year old); job searching; moving into my own home; starting a new job; learning how to be a single parent; saying goodbye to a cat that had been my constant companion for over a decade; adopting 2 super-energetic kittens; getting my son settled into a new school, in a new city and with new people; making new friends; and rediscovering myself.
The truth is, the real reason that I didn’t want to stop with this injury was about what this practice has meant to me the last 400 days. It is constant. It stretches me physically and mentally. If helps to ground me and it helps me soar. It allows me to focus. It reminds me to breathe. It gets me through the day. It is my daily therapy. It keeps me sane.
Let’s see what the next 100 days bring.
