I’ve been attending yoga classes here for a solid year, but this might be the first time I’ve ever arrived early. Sliding my boots off in the lobby, I joke with the front desk girl about how this never happens. Her name is Kiley and I know that because I remember saying, “like Kylie Jenner?” and she said, “No, like Kylie Minogue—my parents were obsessed with her,” and that’s not the kind of thing you forget.
I walk down the hall, around the corner, and into the correct room where I place my belt bag in a cubby and grab two blocks off the rolling cart. I set up my mat behind Robert, who I do not recognize as Robert until I overhear a couple of women making comments about his hair. They’re teasing him, in a friendly way, about how his haircut has been the talk of the studio lately.
“Robert!” I pipe in, “Wow! I totally missed the haircut news … congratulations!”
The other women start laughing as Robert smiles at me. I’ve been in classes with him dozens of times, but we’ve never really talked aside from a brief hello. He reminds me of Seth Avett, and if I had to guess, I’d say he’s probably around 40. This is all I really know about Robert: he used to have a long ponytail, and now he doesn’t.
“Sorry, did I make it weird?” I laugh, “I don’t know why I said congratulations.”
“It’s cool,” he says.
Our instructor, Britt, turns her microphone on, and briefly stands in front of the webcam to say hello to the people at home on Zoom. She then asks those of us in the room to greet our neighbors. I recognize about half the people in the room, but the other half are new to me, possibly because I am new to this specific class.
It’s taken me twelve full months to work up the courage to sign up for Dynamic Flow.
After the greetings fade, Britt takes a seat on the floor in front of floor-to-ceiling windows. Cars whiz back and forth behind the glass, creating little flashes of light in the otherwise dark abyss. Pretty soon a curated playlist will stream through the speakers, but for now there is only the soundtrack of cars whooshing by, a small reminder of the vibrant city pulse beating just outside the stillness of this room.
“This is an advanced class,” Britt begins, “Which means that you know how to take care of yourself.”
She reminds us that she won’t be offering three versions of every pose, because she assumes if a pose is too hard, we will know what to do.
“In other words,” she continues, “if we’re holding side planks for too long and you feel like you’re going to die, drop your knee, okay?”
We all nod our heads. We understand.
“Good,” she says with a sly smile, “because we’re gonna do a LOT of side planks tonight.”
///
Once I get that first advanced class under my belt, I immediately sign up for more.
This whole time, I’ve had it wrong. I spent an entire year thinking I wasn’t good enough for Dynamic Flow, assuming the word “advanced” translated to impossible poses like Lotus and Headstand and Side Crow. In reality—or at least according to this particular studio—the word advanced simply means you know how to rest.
In my third Dynamic Flow class, the instructor begins with the same refrain, “This is an advanced class … which means you know how to take care of yourself.”
I nod. I’ve heard this three times now.
But then she adds, “It also means you know how to have fun, cut loose, and not take yoga too seriously.”
///
From the time I was a young girl, maybe 9 or 10, I pursued exercise with exactly one goal in mind: to achieve physical improvements in my body. By improvements I mean: a flatter stomach, slimmer thighs, and arms that look good in a tank top. I remember doing crunches on my bedroom carpet until I was red in the face, abs on fire, and then standing in front of the mirror and still feeling compelled to suck in my stomach.
I was in the 5th grade.
Blame the magazines, blame Barbie, blame the patriarchy. Blame the day Eve took a bite of forbidden fruit. For most of my life, a consistent tiny voice in the back of my head has reminded me every day that my body could—and should—look better than it does.
I wish I could tell you that by the time I hit my twenties and thirties, married to a man who calls me beautiful and marked by motherhood in a million ways that should—if anything—deepen my appreciation for my body, I no longer thought these thoughts.
But that would be a lie.
///
And so. I joined and quit a hundred gyms. In recent years, drowning in motherhood, I mostly joined for the childcare. I mostly quit because I hated big men in tank tops looking at me while I walked cluelessly through a maze of machines I didn’t know how to use.
I have been to exactly one spin class and one bootcamp, both of which I hated. I attempted Bikram once, but the heat only gave me a migraine. Then I joined ClassPass for a while and hopped around all of Sacramento doing barre and pilates and something called Cardio Tone.
I had a very short relationship with outdoor running, mostly because I was trying to impress a bunch of girls I desperately wanted to be friends with. Once I had all their numbers in my phone, I never ran outside again.
In 2020, I jumped on the bandwagon and bought a Peloton after my best friend did. And then I watched, in sheer incredulity, as that bike became something to her it never became for me. While her bike became a sacred place to pray and sweat and heal, mine collected dust for two years before it found a new home on Facebook marketplace.
And I guess what I’m trying to say is: I have experimented with a lot of exercise. Some of it was good. A lot of it was bad. All of it hurt. I never looked forward to it, never enjoyed it, never loved it.
Until this.
Until I joined a yoga studio and did 99 classes over the course of a year.
///
I tried yoga for the very first time when I was 18 years old, with my hair stylist of all people. She told me she was going to try a class downtown, and I said, “Can I come?” We clumsily flowed through that first class and then went back to her house to watch The Bachelor.
Two years later, I moved to Sacramento, where I learned a lot of yoga studios offer deals where you can get your first month of unlimited classes for anywhere from $50 to $80. So I skipped around from studio to studio, signing up for all the trial months like popping Costco samples I had no intention of buying. I was not looking for a yoga studio to call home. I was not trying to commit to yoga at all.
I was trying to look good in a bathing suit.
///
Twelve weeks before Create Anyway was set to appear on bookshelves, I signed up for another trial at yet another yoga studio. Only this time I told my husband, “I am not doing this for my body, I am doing this for my mind.” The plan: 30 days for $70. I’d proactively treat my book launch stress, and then quit. Just like I always did.
One of the first things I noticed was the lack of mirrors. Another oddity: during class, nobody stood at the front of the room modeling the poses. Instead, the instructors walked around for the duration of the class, simply calling out poses and describing exactly what your body should do.
With zero mirrors and zero instruction at the front of the class, I had to rely on how my body felt—not how it looked—as I flowed from pose to pose.
I attended as many classes as possible during my trial month, trying to get the most bang for my buck. Very quickly, I realized something felt different. Is it the studio? Is it me? After the trial ended, I came back in February. And then March. And then April.
By May, the studio felt like home.
///
From a very young age, every time I heard the words, “I’m so proud of you,” that phrase traveled through my ears straight into my heart as “I love you”—a language hiccup that propelled me into a lifelong pursuit of hard work, hard work, and even more hard work.
Five years ago, on the brink of burnout, I began untangling this identity issue with God for the very first time.
Who am I, without these accomplishments?
Who am I, even if I achieve nothing?
The answer, of course, is Beloved.
As God and I began rewiring my heart together, loosening my death grip on workaholism and productivity, He lovingly nudged me toward two healing balms: rest, and play.
///
They call yoga a “practice” for a reason. There’s no time to beat, no trophy to collect. There is no such thing as mastery. There is no competition, no performance, no online profiles, no public stats.
There are no brownie points or gold stars for showing up; there is only me and the mat. And everyone else and theirs.
Once during a complicated pose in which half the class toppled down to the floor, the instructor said, “If you fall, you give someone else permission to fall. Thanks for taking one for the team!”
We laughed, got back up, and tried again.
At this studio, an advanced class means you know when to take child’s pose, and that you don’t take yoga too seriously.
In other words? An advanced class involves rest, and play.
Maybe this is what I’ve been searching for all my life, as far as exercise goes. Maybe this is what I’ve always needed: to move my body in a way where I have nothing to prove.
///
After 10 classes, I start to feel good. After 20 classes, I feel strong. After 30, 40, 50 classes under my belt, I can—to my own surprise and delight—feel myself improving. I have more stamina and more flexibility, yes, but more than any change in my physical abilities, I can sense a deeper change happening in my heart. It finally dawns on me: for once in my life, I am not trying to change my body. I am, however, changing my mind—and how my mind thinks about my body.
After 60, 70, 80 classes, I no longer think about becoming smaller. That familiar desire to shrink has been replaced with a fierce desire to take up space on the mat.
95 classes in, I am practically euphoric. I am Elle Woods preaching about endorphins. I cannot believe how good this feels: to move, stretch, breathe, sweat, push my body, let it rest, fall down, laugh, get back up.
96.
97.
98.
I finish 2023 at 99 classes, and for a split second I feel disappointed by that number, so close to 100, which is surely more impressive.
And then I remind myself: there are no gold stars at stake here.
Just like writing, showing up to the mat is its own reward.
///
We’re holding side plank, as Britt promised. First on the left. Then the right. Repeat three times. Then we do the whole set again. And again. And again. And again.
The woman next to me drops her knee on the second set. Even though tonight I hold the planks for all five sets, the sight of her modification is an invitation, a gift.
A reminder that I, too, have the same permission to fall if I need to.
For all of this is simply practice.
If you liked this post, you might like these, too:
On Being Proactive
The Hardest Pose
Five Things
As always, you can grab Create Anyway at Amazon (best price at $10.52! currently), Target, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, or directly through Baker Book House. Thank you so much for supporting my writing ❤️
Love the idea of advanced meaning knowing how to rest and play!
I have struggled immensely over the years with body image, being a workout fanatic, and trying to get "the look" that would make me happy. As I get older, I have learned that being 10 pounds heavier but mentally healthy is SEXY. Working out doesn't always have to be high impact and heavy lifting. I appreciate your post Ashlee because I have added yoga into my workout regimen and it is sooo good for the mind, body, and soul