A Wee Yogi

I've been doing the Wii Fit yoga routine for about 6 months now. I don't do it very regularly, maybe once a week on average since I began last winter. Lately I don't do it with the wii itself, because it takes a bit of time to navigate all the screens and options, and really I just want to do the asanas. So I bring up a list of the exercises online, and do the routine myself, usually in the living room with something playing on the TV.

Last year, 2008, I had chronic pain in my hips and lower back. Bending over was painful, nearly impossible. Stepping down hard like off a curb unexpectedly would send shooting pains up my back. Since beginning the yoga routine that pain is nearly gone. I still don't bend as gracefully as I would like, and I'm not strong enough to hold a bent over pose, but I can bend. I can get up from a chair, and bend over to pull a bottle of pop out of the pop machine at work, and pick something up from the floor. Small accomplishments to most, but mighty to me.

Tonight I did my wii yoga routine again. I can definitely see improvement in all the asanas. The balancing poses - tree, dance, standing knee - I can do longer and more steadily than before. Ones that need a lot of flexibility - triangle, sun salutation - are easier and steadier as well. The others that have never seemed too difficult - warrior, downward facing dog, bridge, and more - well, they seem even smoother than before. I think I'm really seeing improvement here.

It feels really really good to do the yoga routine and to feel like I'm improving. It feels even better to step off a curb hard, on purpose, to feel no pain blossoming in my hips or back. It feels awesome to be able to bend or stand without as much effort and stiffness as previously. I'm still not graceful, or strong, and in the yard tonight I had to do my awkward half-bend half-crouch while filling the watering can, but I'm doing these things better and better all the time.

My goals for working out are first to eliminate the pain I've lived with for the last year or two, second to get fitter and stronger so I can keep up energetically with my son, and third to lose weight, or at least to tone and tighten. I just sneezed and no pain! That's another goal, to not fear sneezing. What a place I've come to. It makes me shake my head. I need to do these things for me, for my husband and son. They need a wife and mother who can participate and have fun, not some woman who creeps and crouches because she's so twisted up in agony.