Dusting Myself Off And My Yoga Mat

Just about an hour ago I was chatting with a couple of friends near the decks when an old man passed by in search of a boat to have a cruise with on the Danube. He came right on time as they were expecting another persons willing to do the same thing and the group for the boat was almost complete with him. It's a sunny day and having quite a few tourists in town it was mission accomplished before you know it.

While waiting for the others to come we had the pleasure to chat a bit with the old man in between his walks, because he didn't seem to like staying in one place at all. We also tried to guess his age after seeing how active and full of energy was the old dude. Almost all of us gave him 60 and boy how wrong we were about that.

When he came back from one of his walks, right in time for boarding, one of us asked the man how old is he and he amazed us by saying that he is seventy years old. A decade older than what we expected to be. Man, I saw mid 50's that were less agile and active than this old dude. I am less agile and energetic as him and I'm 33. He did inspired me and made me think a bit about my daily activities and what I do for my health and well being and I realized I pretty much don't do anything besides ridding the bike once in a while.

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It's not close to nothing but I really need to become more active and to boost my energy levels and one activity besides many others that helped me alot doing that was yoga, which I used to practice quite often a few years ago. I kind of lost interest in the recent years and my mat is just laying in its corner, full of dust, while I'be become too stiff for my age and too lazy.

Thus I'm taking back my routine, or at least try creating one, and I'm dusting my mat off and as of today I promised to myself that for at least half an hour a day I will work a bit on myself with a couple of yoga poses(asanas) that "I master". I used to be able to do the scorpio pose and even head standing for quite some minutes still, back in the days, but I doubt I am still able now to master any of them.

I won't even try them the next week or so because I need some practice with the easier ones but at least with the easy ones I will put my body, mind and energy to work and get back on the horse. I really felt great when having two or three yoga sessions a week and even better when combining to some push-ups and biking/jogging. I wouldn't recommend anyone though to start on their own with the most difficult yoga poses if I opened any interest in you. If you want to "play by the books", like I did, I would recommend BKS Yiengar and his Light in yoga which is a great book for learning yoga and a must read for a beginner.

But enough with talking and typing. It's time for practice and I feel like a kid taking his bike out of the garage after a long winter. Now I have to clean my mat and swipe a few pages from the above mentioned book to remember what poses I liked the most and see which of them I am still able to practice and start doing any.

Funny how an old man that goes on mountains by himself and has the walking speed of a 12 years old teenager has inspired me to take back my yoga practice and start doing something for myself. I admit that beer and junk food has had a big place in my life this summer. I am not the type to take sports and physical activities to pro levels but I do enjoy being active and noticed the benefits of having a balanced life when compared with a lazy one as well. What's your spontaneous inspiration to improve yourself that you had lately?

Thanks for attention,
Adrian