When I was sixteen, a sophomore in high school, I thought my oldest sister Katie was weird because she did yoga. She was 24 at the time. A friend from work had introduced her to it. She loved it and started to go a lot. She has stayed with it and continues to go about four times a week.

While Katie has a very interesting yoga journey that she went on, I have one of my own. I started this article by saying I thought she was weird for doing yoga. Well she introduced me to it and now I do it too. I'm weird as well now. I don't go to yoga nearly as much as Katie does, and it will probably be a while before I can go that much, though I wish I could. I found out that yoga is super fun, as well as an incredibly hard and intense workout. It helps you to become less stressed as well as helps you to stay healthy. It is something that I look forward to when I can do it, and makes me feel so much better afterwards. It has kept me fit and happy. I have never, nor will I ever, regret that first choice I made to go to yoga with my sister.

So here is the story of how I got into yoga.

Even though I thought Katie was weird, I was also a bit curious about what she did in yoga, and even a little jealous of her and what she could do because of yoga. She would sometimes stretch right there in the living room, and do a few moves. I always thought she was just showing off, and still do. But it did succeed in making me jealous and I wanted to be able to do what she could. So she would show us a move and me and my other sister, Jill, might try to do it. I didn't really like doing it in front of Katie because I didn't want to totally fail while she was watching.

Sometimes, after seeing her do a harder move I would try it on my own in the basement or in my room. I remember being so exited when I could do the pose crow for the first time. I'm proud to say I figured it out pretty fast. It's one of the more difficult poses to hold in yoga. I'll try to explain it and I dare you to try it: you start in a low crouch, sitting a bit like a frog, knees forward and on the balls of your feet; you place your palms firm on the ground in font of you and brace your knees on your upper arms: the closer to your armpits the better; then you begin to tilt froward so that your feet lift off the ground and you're balancing only on your hands; to better keep your balance look slightly in front of you, rather than straight down. It takes a bit of practice, but it gets easier the more you do it, as it is with most of the poses in yoga.

Once I did a few of the moves I wanted to try more. But it was a while before I actually accompanied my sister to one of her classes. She always wanted someone to come with her. She would try and get our dad to go with her, saying there were older men who would go. She wanted Jill to try it and go with her, and me as well. We kept saying no though. I just didn't have the confidence to commit to a whole class at that point yet. I just wasn't sure about it. Jill did finally go. But it wasn't really her thing. I think she likes cardio better, while yoga is slower moving, but still intense.

Finally I tagged along to a class with Katie. I think it was either during my junior year of high school, spring break maybe, or that following summer. Because Katie had a membership, she could bring a friend for one free class. So I gave in and decided to try it. After all I could do crow, how hard could the rest of it be?

I remember that first class pretty well. There weren't very many people there for it. One person asked to do the river formation because there were so few people. River formation means that we all lined up along the wall with our mats, so then we could use the wall to aid with some of the poses. Okay, I thought, that'll be nice for my first class. I probably ended up using the wall more than I should've though. Also, one very important and crucial thing with yoga is breathing. Your breath guides you from one pose to the next, so the whole class needs to be breathing together. My first class, though, in river formation, I could not keep the breath. I didn't know that I was supposed to be breathing with everyone else, and I didn't really know how to keep a consistent breathing pattern in time with the poses we were going through. I remember Katie being annoyed that the instructor didn't realize that the breath was off and try and get everyone on the same breath.

Despite those things, I still enjoyed that first class, and came out of it realizing that yoga was not as easy as I had thought. I was soaked in sweat and my limbs were jelly. Going down the stairs was weird and hard, because my legs were so worn out. And the next day I remember being so sore. My muscles had never been used the way that yoga class had made them work. But I admitted to Katie that I had really enjoyed the class, and that I wanted to go again. So that summer after junior year I began to go to yoga about once a week, usually in the morning. Classes, with a student ID were only ten dollars. I didn't go often enough to want to buy a membership. Once school started up again I couldn't go to the later morning classes so I would do the six AM class on Mondays with Katie, before school. My friends thought I was crazy. I probably was.

I thought I was crazy too sometimes. A lot of people did, when I told them I did yoga. Especially when I told them the name of the studio, which I have left out of the article thus far because the name is a tad ridiculous: The Funky Buddha Yoga Hothouse. Despite the name it is a really cool studio. In the room where we practice there is a wall covered in quotes and inspirational sayings and such written by people who have come to the classes over the years. The front wall is painted with chalkboard paint so they can write announcements and such on it, and they do poses of the month. They sell merchandise there too, and they like to say Funk Yeah on their stuff. I have a shirt that says it, which I received as a Christmas gift from Katie. I have gotten a few incredulous looks from people when they first see it. I feel like I've kind of committed to that studio. It feels familiar to me now, just another part of my life, just like yoga.

I continued to do yoga though my senior year and that following summer, and even my first semester of college. Then, unfortunately, the prices for drop-in classes went up. And I was already getting tight on money with paying tuition. So I decided to take a break from going to yoga classes for a while, both to my regret and Katie's: she enjoyed having someone to come to yoga with her. But I had to put school first.

I didn't let that stop me from doing yoga on my own. At least for a little while. I would do my own routines in my living room. Making up the order of the poses as I went along, listening to music. I'd try to make it last at least an hour each time. Once in a while I would even go online and find a podcast of a class and follow along with that. It worked for some time. I kept with it. But then I wouldn't do it one week. And then it had been two weeks since the last time I did it. And then it just stopped all together.

Now that I'm done with school for the summer I'm going to try and go to the classes again every now and then. I really do love yoga. It works my muscles in ways that they're not normally used. The work out is intense, yet doesn't take my breath away like running or cardio does. Also, the kind of yoga we do is hot yoga, which means that the room is kept at about ninety degrees, or sometimes even hotter. It is also a humid heat, not a dry heat. It makes the workout that much more intense, and the floor that much more sweaty. Doing yoga is the only time my entire body has been completely covered in sweat.

I used to think that yoga was weird, as well as not that hard of a workout. Now, I think it is fun and an intense workout. It has been incorporated into my life, and I don't think it will ever stop being a part of my life. Yoga has helped me to release stress that I'd been holding onto. It has helped me to appreciate what slowing down a bit can do for you. Not everything always needs to be rushed. Doing things slower can actually be more productive, as exercise is in yoga.

Now is the part where I try to sell you on yoga.

If exercise is kinda hard for you, and you find it too much work to commit to going running or going to a gym, I'd say try yoga. It's not as tiring as a cardio workout, and it can actually wake you up in the morning and make you more productive during the day. Those early Monday mornings actually made my Mondays better. I have also found that yoga has strengthened my endurance along with my muscles. It has made me stronger and more flexible. Before yoga, I couldn't touch my toes without bending my knees, now I can do that and more.

If you think yoga is weird, well so did I. Try it anyway. Remember to breathe, and have fun. You might find you enjoy it.

Namaste.