My yogaversary snuck up on me as usual, December 25th being some other date in the calendar. By now my practice is automatic, although it still takes effort. There may not be much more to say about my streak. But I’m sure I’ll figure out something.
I was introduced to yoga in college in Vermont. After many years I went back to New England and spent a whole summer studying it. I did a work trade while living at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in. Western Massachusetts. Here’s a picture of the great lawn.
While I was there I had a teacher named Yoganand had been a monastic for 14 years. The scandal of the former guru taking advantage of women and committing financial improprieties had long since passed by the time I get there. I was really fortunate to have such an advanced teacher who had studied under the founder and also the founder’s teacherm
While I took a class here and there over the years and actually led a few after leaving the center, it took me many more years to start doing yoga on my own at home. Why, I can’t say.
But restart again I did. As I write, I’m literally a block away from where I was living when I began my daily 30 minutes of yoga. I’m housesitting in a place I used to live, which is around the corner and down the street from another rented room in a shared house.
Serendipity? Coincidence? Karma? Who’s to say?
As with my recent bike ride that took me to 52,000 miles in just under 10 years, (https://adudeabikes.com/2025/12/12/12-12-2025-52000-miles-bicycled-in-519-weeks/) I went back to the exact starting point. The annual reminder makes me think back to that time. I’ve previously written about doing a three-week yoga challenge, which when I restarted it, I just kept it going. At first it was one day at a time, then a week went by, after that a month, then a season, two, three and finally a year.
The disclaimer always make is that I pushed the start button to my Garmin watch after midnight more than once. So, the Guiness Book of World Records did not certify my streak. But I still have done the fang poses and breathing and suxh essentially daily.
What is time anyway? It’s a human construct which is theorized to slow down in relation to black holes, which is pretty sus to me. Time may or may not even really exist. But I continue to do asanas.
Over the past year my practice has become fairly rote, and mostly on the floor. I focus on my legs and recovery from bicycling, or sometimes preparation for bicycle. I start with knee down twists, do shoulder rotations, strerxh my quads, cat / cows, maybe a couple of down dogs, lion, pigeon pose, and end with five minutes of foam rolling. I stretch, I hold, I breathe, exhale then I go.
It works for me, and I continue to believe it’s the secret weapon that’s allowed me to bike 100 miles a week for 10 years. I know of at least two cyclists who have taken up yoga thanks to my practice which I started posting on Strava several years ago.
Ironically my streak may soon end for the same reason that it was interrupted initially, anesthesia. That will also take me off my bicycle. After so long, I kind of am at the point where well the streak is nice but regular is far more important. If I’m medically unable to practice yoga postures or bicycle or walk for a day or week or more, then so be it. The important thing is to start again.
One bad habit I’ve picked up this year past year or more has been looking at my phone while in deep stretches. I hope to stop doing that but I either watching the other with Adrienne videos or other teachers. I’ve only casually searched for Yoganand on the internet in recent years. He left Kripalu in 2003 to form his own yoga school called Pranakriya, and now his step back from that too to be an occasional master teacher.
But tonight I found an audio recording of 30 minutes of floor postures on YouTube. It was surreal to hear his voice and also soothing and reassuring. All these years later my teacher is still teaching me. One of the postures was brand new to me, and it’s the most challenging session I’ve had in a long time.
The nice thing about yoga is that most any body can do it. As a fathlete there are certain poses I have to adapt. But so what? Did you know that almost 75% of Americans are overweight? It can be intimidating to go to advanced classes where some people are very thin and fit. Good for them. But it’s good to know that many yoga classes are friendly to people living in large bodies.
If you can move, breathe, and focus, you might give it a try. Find a teacher who will work with you and is in your budget. Start small and slow and work your way up. If your experiencing a lot of pain, that’s not yoga. Be careful of gym yoga which is often very competitive and not good for beginners well it doesn’t really even yoga. You can do it in your bed, or in a chair, or in a wheelchair, or even in the water. No fancy equipment is needed, although a mat, blocks and a bolster are helpful.
What else have I learned after a dozen years of daily yoga? The main thing is that yoga is experiential. I still think of myself as a beginner. So in a way, I can’t really tell you. I leave you with this Lao Tzu quote:
“Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.”
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