Finding My Chill

I recently discovered the greatest activity in Silicon Valley, which is neither spin class at a boutique gym or happy hour after a strenuous day of programming or analyzing or otherwise engaging in technology-centric activities; it’s chill yoga, no joke. Chill yoga inspires, relaxes, and stretches adherents physically and metaphorically. No stationary bicycle or cocktail of the month can do that.

I've been drawn to yoga for years. My down dog I now consider above average, and my warrior one appears simultaneously powerful and sleek. But I'm not adept at spending 60 minutes beautifully flowing from asana to asana because yoga, let's face it, is tough. I've tried to practice regularly but have easily found excuses to postpone the workout -- I'm a mom with a nearly full time job and so many essays to evaluate that even God feels sorry for me and wonders if He made a mistake when creating the desire to be an underpaid English professor. So I buy yoga mats in multiple colors and of thicknesses that vary from 1/4 to 1/2 inch, and I research the best yoga on youtube (Tara Stiles). I do guided yoga in my room, basically Skyping with Miss Stiles while my phone is propped against a chair, and sometimes I watch, instead, 'ten minutes to a better butt' (which is not a bad video, by the way).

Last August I discovered a charming studio near San Jose’s Japantown. During a city sponsored summer activity, Vive Calle, an afternoon celebration of community all SJ dwellers should participate in for the music and the energy and the stress-free networking with neighbors, I approached a booth promoting a business with a cool name, Live Lotus. I chatted for a moment with the enthusiastic and obviously fit woman advertising the business and received a two-for-one card for an initial class. Free for a friend? I had to check it out.

At home, I consulted the Live Lotus website that listed courses from Beginning Yoga to Mixed Level Yoga to Restorative Yoga. But the class I found the most attractive was Chill Yoga. I liked the simplicity, I liked the name. And I liked the course’s description: half yoga, half meditation. I needed both.

Note here: I’ve been resistant to meditation for a long time, I don’t know why. I somehow feel silly, judged by the invisible people in my room (head?) wondering why I’ve adopted the tool of the monks. Or something like that.

On the first night of chilll yoga, I arrived late -- God and my students understand why. I quietly placed my mat next to that of my punctual girlfriend who had left a space for me; I felt self-conscious and conspicuous, like an imposter yogi who night never find her chill. The instructor, hair pulled into a ponytail that was as easy as her smile, guided students through simple movements, had us sitting, standing, using the block, breathing. And then she turned up the music slightly and turned down the lights significantly, and instructed us to find a comfortable position on our backs in which to chill. (Not her exact words, but that was the idea). For thirty minutes, we listened to a voice at just the right decibel and with a cadence that could coax belligerent animals, like me, from their favorite but dangerous spot atop a roof or under a heated engine. She guided us through relaxation from toes to fingertips to hips to head and brought us to visualization of acceptance, self-love and optimism. By the end of the session, I didn’t understand what I was feeling. After we all brought our hands together, bowed our heads and said namaste, I gathered my things and walked down the stairs of the studio to my car. In the covered garage, I understood: I was relaxed.

I’ve returned to chill yoga multiple times, sometimes unwittingly taking the class with a different instructor, a woman as gentle and clear as the first. This instructor delivers a different course, preferring to place students in positions for meditation, positions in which we stay for ten minutes instead of two. She doesn’t divide the hour into yoga then peaceful meditation but assimilates the two. This class is different, the effect the same. I leave feeling grateful, peaceful, optimistic.

So I wonder, as I spend my days confronting difficulties that vary from the mundane to the truly challenging, how to integrate the sense of peace I find at chill yoga into my life. There are ways, I’m sure. I can participate in the course as often as possible; I can remind myself, each morning, of the class, of the movements, of the guidance and affirmation; I can tell myself that no matter the difficulties, finding peace is possible. Because everyone, even those living Silicon Valley, needs that.

namaste. connection. peace.