flygirlyoga.fit

For most of my life, movement wasn’t a choice — it was how I understood myself.

While my early years were filled with academics – family banned me from anything physical or sporty – I made up for it the moment I left for college.

I took sports classes through my university and community centers. I joined running groups. I started lifting weights. As I explored sports from basketball and baseball to soccer and tennis, I gravitated toward strength and cardio activities. I found I was pretty strong and fast but couldn’t quite get that hand and eye coordination thing down for any type of team sport.

I continued to expand my health and fitness journey through college and life. I joined Air Force ROTC later in college. I became a forest firefighter. I joined the Marine Corps. I ran a few marathons and a couple triathlons. On the Marine Corps Physical Fitness Test, I even outperformed most males in my unit – even when I did the male version of this test after completing a top mark in the female version. 

Throughout my entire adult life, movement has always been a priority. When I take fitness classes and the instructor’s theme is “don’t quit” and “keep it up”, I’m confused and annoyed. Why would anyone not want to work out every day?! 

I have learned that while many others have the perspective of “I have to work out,” my mindset was “I get to work out!”

There weren’t many athletic things I didn’t try. I explored multiple styles of martial arts (including fencing), dance, and aerobics. I got really into rock climbing – both inside and out. Outdoor pursuits were a strong pull: kayaking, canoeing, cross-country skiing, skijoring, surfing, water skiing, mountain biking. I even became a certified scuba diver.

I ventured into Parkour and tried a year of CrossFit (too prescribed, not body-aware), rolled my eyes through “Boot Camp” classes (never even close to the real thing), and briefly joined a rugby team before deciding I liked the sport, but not the drama of the relationships between team members.

Eventually I found my way to flying trapeze and circus – which elevated my strength and conditioning far beyond anything I’d achieved in the Marines.

As I expanded the aggressive, active activities and learned more about health and fitness, I reluctantly accepted the need to incorporate flexibility, elongation, and balance to, well… achieve a more balanced fitness regimen. On my “rest” day, I added Yoga or Pilates to my other “rest” activity of light cardio, a dance class, or hiking.

Yoga was the thing I had to deliberately plan into my week to get that type of movement. I had to go out of my way to ensure it was part of my regular schedule. I was doing it because I knew it was a good thing to do. I knew it would benefit my body so I could continue to get stronger and achieve goals in my other fitness activities – i.e., more pull-ups, more push-ups, lifting people above my head, climbing a rope without any feet…those were my fitness goals. 

Over the decades of the extreme life of the Marines, firefighting, and the Circus, yoga remained a steady sideshow.

When Covid hit the planet and I was yearning for anything social, I found there were lots of online yoga options, but very few other fitness choices. While I continued with my individual daily conditioning and cardio regimen at home, I now added 7 days of yoga during that year of lockdown.

I became more familiar with the positions and the Sanskrit words. With my 15 years of circus, I had become quite strong and had built up my handstands, headstands, and core work. I was soon grasping all the various arm balancing yoga stances. 

During this time, my left hand began going numb – first during yoga when my arms were raised, then while lifting weights. Then I couldn’t bear weight in planks or push-ups. Soon, I couldn’t grasp the pull-up bar at all and resorted to one-arm pull-ups. 

The pins and needles spread up my arm. It became swollen and ice cold, all day long. Over the course of a year, I went from doing hundreds of pull-ups each week, performing professionally as a flying trapeze artist, and lifting men larger than me overhead – to cooking with my feet and my one functioning arm. One by one, I let go of each physical pursuit.

Yoga was the last to go.

This was life changing.

After multiple surgeries – removing muscles, a rib, and repairing what they could of the damaged nerves – the numbness, swelling, and constant cold subsided. But I only regained limited use of my left arm and hand. Typing, picking up small objects, even daily tasks require constant adaptation.

I’ve slowly worked back fitness into my life, though it looks nothing like before. 

Cardio is limited; too much bouncing and my damaged nerves makes my fingers cold and tingly. Weight lifting is just as constrained – my left hand can’t grip, so I loop weights around my wrist with a yoga strap. To anything close to a burn, I do sets of forty, fifty, sometimes 80 reps. 

But I am working out.

And alongside this altered strength and cardio, yoga has remained. 

It was my last fitness friend to go before I was forced to just sit on the couch. I was the first to return after my surgeries as I slowly started rebuilding my life. 

As I lost my identity of being an athlete, all the yoga brought more than movement. It brought philosophy. Introspection. Self-evaluation. The questions my yoga instructors would pose spurred the deep thought they’re intended to do. I wouldn’t say I found answers, but I found a way forward. I found a way to accept this new person I was. I found how to embrace this journey and where I was heading.

Yoga stopped being something I did — and became something I chose, again and again.