34 yoga classes by my 34th year

It's been a long while since I updated this thing.  So, let me update at a high level:  moved from DC to Oregon in 200..9?  I lived in Eugene for 2 years and now I call Portland Oregon home.  I decided to crack open the old blog-o-sphere today as I wanted to start writing about my experience with yoga.  More specifically, I have set out to do a challenge for myself to do 34 yoga classes by 34th birthday (which is 5.2.14).  Doing 34 yoga classes is a not a long held tradition in India or anything cool like that.  I just started doing some hot yoga at this studio that is just down the street and it occurred to me that it would be a good habit to make permanent as I get older.  And doing 34 by 34 was a challenge with the real goal and deadline.

Yoga has been good for me (I'm on class #5).  A few of the benefits I've noticed:

I sleep better.  I actually feel pretty dang tired at the end of the day when I do a class in the evening.  My body feels similar to when I worked construction and I would have the thought of "wow I did something today" versus just feeling like another day spent at a desk staring at a computer...

I eat better.  I think because the yoga is causing me to be more aware of my body this in turn makes me more aware of what I grub upon.  So, I have been grubbing upon more healthy grub.

I have been drinking less.  Well this is a bit of a tricky one to include as I also went on a dryiatus last week.  But I feel like doing the yoga thing helps me not want a beer with dinner or at all really.  Although unrelated to yoga, going on a drinkless bender puts the presence of alcohol in my life into a surprising spotlight.  I also realize that not drinking leads to not eating late at night which leads to not having poor sleep.  These are all things I've probably been told before but sometime you just have to experience something for your self...!

Flexibility.  I guess that is one of the many whole points of yoga.  Can you have many whole points?  It seems that way.  Some folks seem to just be into the flexibility piece of yoga, others the fitness, others the mind.  I seems to like the whole buffet.  Fortunately, I have gone from knees to ankles to almost toes in the fingers to feet stretching this week.  It will be interesting to see how my flexibility changes.

In some ways I feel like with the 34 yoga class challenge I should progress with yoga in the same way that I 'matured' as a human (some would say my maturity is still in progress).  By this logic, I am currently a yoga 5 year old.  This feels pretty accurate.

I'll try to give updates as I get closer to my 34th class.  Wish me luck!