The other day I was wasting time online and came across an interview given by Gabourey Sidibe, the actress who played the title character in the movie “Precious”.  Sidibe was quoted as saying “I hate yoga so much. Like, if yoga was a person, I’d stab them.” I have to admit, I was sort of shocked.  I’ve known yoga to stir up angry feelings (in fact, I’ve talked about it in this blog), but the extent of Sidibe’s hatred was surprising.

Obviously, I enjoy yoga and consider it important enough to my well-being to try to do it every day, but I didn’t always feel that way.  My first experience with yoga was in a college phys ed class.  I was taking a semester of Aerobics and, to my surprise, the syllabus included a week of yoga.  I thought it was boring.  Why would I ever need to spend an hour doing stretches?  The best part was the five minutes of corpse pose (aka nap time) at the end of class when the instructor turned the lights off.  When yoga week was done, I would have described yoga as dull, but I certainly couldn’t have mustered up the kind of vitriol for the practice that Sidibe feels.

So why would yoga inspire so much hatred?  Sidibe goes on to say “it doesn’t make any sense to kill yourself, because who are you trying to be beautiful for? It’s a mind game, not a body game” which makes me wonder if she’s missed the point.  Yoga is about the mind as much as the body.  One of the main reasons I decided to try maintaining a daily practice is because I know my mind feels calmer and less cloudy when I do yoga.  And I know I’m nicer to be around, too.  Once of my favorite yogis, Eoin Finn, says that when we practice yoga, it’s the people in our lives who benefit the most.  I wholeheartedly agree.

For the update on my daily practice… Yesterday I did the Standing Pose sequence from Rodney Yee’s AM Yoga for Your Week DVD and today I did Heart-Air from Shiva Rea’s Daily Energy DVD.  I can feel my flexibility increasing, my calves loosening up, and my arms feeling stronger.  Since I’ve been doing shorter sessions I didn’t expect to notice much of a difference this soon, but I’m pleasantly surprised at what a consistent practice can do.

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