My favorite YouTube channel is Yoga with Adriene, mostly because I thrive on affirmation and she spends most of our time together telling me I'm doing a great job and it's okay if I can't yet do a headstand or straighten my knees in a forward fold. She says things like, "If you can reach your toes, great. If you can't, who cares?" And this is the kind of mentality I need with regard to any stretching with resistance in my life.
I am a yoga amateur, complete with the pants and the mat, and I kind of love it all. I do it every evening before my bedtime, and since my bedtime has inched closer and closer to the boys' bedtime, and since they are with me everywhere I am, all the livelong day and always and forever, they do yoga with me.
But to say "they do yoga with" me is a loose interpretation. Mostly, Tucker 'coaches' me with, "Mommy, she's not doing that with her hands. Mommy, your back isn't straight like hers. Mommy, it's time to sit up now - do you see how she's sitting up?"
And Tyler climbs in and out of my downward facing dog.
"Guys, what can you tell Grandma about yoga?" I asked them. I'm not sure what I thought they'd say, since maybe there isn't much to say about it, but I'm forever prompting them to answer, tell, describe, and for the love of emotional intelligence, engage.
"Oh, I can tell you about it, Grandma," Tuck offers. "Yoga is for fat people."
"What?! Tucker! Why would you say that? It's an exercise for anyone who wants to be healthy. Please don't say it's for fat people."
Tyler pats my back with just a touch of condescension.
"Oh, sorry, Mommy. It's for thick people."
Right. As if all I was hoping for was a shift in the synonym.
I went to a fat camp, errr, I mean a Faith and Fitness camp last year and the only thing that I excelled at was the stretching exercises. 🙂
Does my laughing out loud here count as legitimate exercise?
I've been called "thick" before. And while this term would apply to various parts of my anatomy, I suspect they were referring to an area just north of my neck. STINK.