I walked into my first 26&2 yoga class in 2011, at 27 years old. I had practiced yoga on and off before, but I was intrigued about the extreme heat and the changes that I heard would take place if I committed to a regular practice. I thought, for perhaps the millionth time, maybe this would be the thing that would “fix” my body. My body wasn’t broken, to clarify. It was just bigger than I thought it should be; than society thought it should be. Ever overzealous, I went every day for 3 months, hit a mental wall, and decided not to go back.
Over the course of those 3 months I did notice changes in my body – I gained flexibility, my heat tolerance skyrocketed, and I grew stronger. I don’t think my body got any smaller, at least not memorably so. One thing I do remember with perfect clarity, though, were the outfits that most of the participants wore. Matching bra and tiny shorts sets with ruching on the sides, the strings tied into little bows as if their bodies were presents. I wondered why everyone wore the same outfit and if I would ever wear one. Walking into class each day wearing bike shorts and a tank top signaled that I did not fit in. Not energetically, not mentally, and definitely not physically.
My regular 26&2 practice ended but my commitment to yoga did not. I found the joys of room temperature yoga at other studios. As I got deeper into my yoga practice, I learned new things and tried new poses, some of which I was able to do, and some of which I was not. In 2019, at age 35, I took a few private yoga lessons and asked the teachers to assess whether I might be ready for teacher training. I’m ashamed now that I did this – I put my future in the hands of people I barely knew and let them decide for me. When you go through teacher training at Three Sisters (which I did, spoiler alert!), if there’s one thing you learn from Jen, it’s to never give your power to anyone else.
The teachers I worked with told me I was ready for training, but what if they hadn’t? Would I have shelved that curiosity and given up? It’s an alternate reality I prefer not to think about.
I finally went to teacher training in January 2022. The first thing I noticed about my cohort was that I was the biggest person in the group. This comparison of my body against everyone else’s is a toxic habit I developed after decades of self-loathing and is something that I am only recently finally starting to shed. I pushed past my discomfort, completed my 200 hour training and started teaching later in 2022. I was back in a hot room, noticing yet again that I wasn’t wearing the same outfit as everyone else – this time instead of ruched sets it was a matching sports bra and leggings. I was still in a tank top.
Here's the thing. Over the course of those years – the hours of personal practice, my 200 and later 300-hour programs, all the classes taught – I finally realized that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what my body looks like or what I wear to practice. My body is strong and powerful and it does amazing things every day. I don’t just mean it’s amazing that I can do a split or kick up into a handstand, although I love that I can do those things. My body is amazing because it keeps me alive. It moves me from place to place, it alerts me when it experiences discomfort and while I sleep at night, it repairs itself. Incredible! At the same time, I’m human and sometimes grow frustrated with it. My right knee has arthritis and there are days where even child’s pose – a quintessential yoga resting shape – is too much sensation to bear. While I can stand on my right leg, interlock my peace fingers around my left big toe and kick my left leg straight out in front of me with ease, ask me to stand on my right leg and bend my right knee more than a few inches and I’ll probably collapse.
It is the act of sitting with these dualities – strength and weakness, pride and frustration, effort and ease – that is the real practice of yoga. It’s becoming aware of how you show up to your mat and to your life and being okay with all of it. The hamstring flexibility and the knee pain together. The fancy arm balances and the resting shapes. The clarity and the frustration. It’s not comparing yourself today to how you were yesterday because we are never the same from one moment to the next. It’s also not about comparing yourself to the person on the next mat over because yoga isn’t about competition, it’s about keeping your eyes on your own paper (though if we’re getting technical about it, it might be more correct to say that in yoga philosophy, we all share the same, single, massive sheet of paper).
Unlike that first experience at 27, nowadays, at 41, each time I roll out my mat I focus not on how I’d like my body to change but on how my body is. Sometimes my lower back asks me to skip upward facing dog and I respect that. Sometimes my body craves going upside down and I respect that too. I am constantly humbled by the poses I want to do but cannot. More often, though, I take pride in my newfound ability to overcome the “shoulds” and just let things be. I find joy in how well we communicate with each other now, my body and me. Maybe not 100% of the time, but it’s improving. As a teacher, I try to cultivate an environment of safety and embodiment through offering options and autonomy. I notice students in varying stages of awareness - of themselves, of each other, of me. I guide them as best I can towards presence, acceptance, and turning inwards. I remind myself to practice these things as well.
My body has probably changed a lot since my early yoga days, though I take less care to notice it now. I show up to practice, or to teach, ready to do what feels right and skip what feels harmful, in whatever clothes feel best. I’m nearly 15 years into a serious yoga practice and nearly 800 classes taught, and I still don’t own a matching yoga set. It no longer bothers me.
-Arielle Jacobs
