When I was 18 years old, I asked my father if I could join a gym. I thought a yoga class and some weight lifting might be relaxing, and I needed desperately to relax in my final year of high school. He said, and I remember this clearly, “Oh no, you’ll never go.” He was very wrong.
When I was 26 years old, I lived in an old apartment building downtown. There was an area in the lobby where everybody would drop off things they no longer wanted, and they were up for grabs. It was a lovely give and take situation. One day, there was a videotape called “Yoga for Beginners”. I took it and gleefully went upstairs to my place to do it. It was monumentally difficult for me and I was sore for days. I must have had a different definition for “Beginners” than whoever produced this insane tape.
When I was 40 years old, my beautiful next door neighbour invited me to go to a hot yoga class with her. I do not like hot anything, but agreed to go because the class was to be reduced heat. I really enjoyed the class but I did think i would die from the heat, reduced was still too much. I do not like heat.
When I was 43 years old, many things happened. I won a gift certificate for a local fitness company and chose power yoga for my class. I was quite nervous before the first class but at least I knew it wouldn’t be hot, because it was taking place in someone’s basement. I loved this class and took it for almost a year.
The really cool thing that happened that year is that I took a trip to Hilton Head, South Carolina. We were staying at a resort with some family friends and there was a yoga class on the beach most mornings. Well, I couldn’t wait to do that class, it was going to be the highlight of the trip for me, I just knew it! My friend and I arrived on the beach the first morning and the instructor didn’t show up! It was very cold out that morning so we thought that it must have been cancelled. A few other people showed up and we didn’t know what to do, so I decided to lead the class. Just like that. If I had had weeks to prepare I don’t know that I would have done any better. I just went through a couple of the sequences from memory that we had done in the class that I had been going to. It was a life- changing experience for me, and definitely was the highlight of the trip!! The picture below is me at the end of the class. Incidentally, the class hadn’t been cancelled, it had just been moved indoors, but somehow my friend and I, and the five other ladies on the beach missed the sign. Lucky for me.
Since then, the basement yoga class has ended, and I was left with the hot yoga at the local Moksha. I tried it again. I wanted to like it, I really did. The classes themselves were amazing and I did love them. But I couldn’t stand the heat. The heat made me unhappy. No one should ever leave a yoga class unhappy. I have had a hard time finding something in my area that I am happy with. Everything available is either hot yoga, or unheated but not really yoga, or very expensive. So in my mind, the only thing to do was to create something myself. Now I’m finally doing it! I love the idea of combining my love of helping others with fitness (and chocolate) and my own desire for a yoga class that I like. 28 years in the making!! When I am done with the training, I will be holding classes – are you in?
Connect with me on facebook – Chocolate+Yoga or Andrea L Accinelli
