Wellmania by Brigid Delaney

Author:Brigid Delaney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Schwartz Publishing Pty. Ltd

Strong practices are getting easier every time I get on the mat now. I meditate daily, craving it – the mental space, the quiet twenty minutes (we’ve moved up five minutes from fifteen), the way towards the end everything just empties out and time loses all its tension.

My diet is changing without much input from anyone. There’s no program being shoved down my throat, no dietary plan, yet without it feeling like a hardship – without the need for ceremony, ritual, one last binge, the anticipation of future regret – I am letting my old favourite foods go and gravitating towards healthy options. If only I had known it could be so easy.

Things I clung to in the past, my ‘favourite’ things – dirty burgers, chips, chocolate, pasta, three lattes a day – I just don’t feel like any more. One morning I learn the hard way about not eating a massive, cooked breakfast fifteen minutes before class. In the room heated to 30 degrees I can feel the food move up (all that avocado, all that toast and coffee) and the sweat pouring off me is not the cleansing kind but feels toxic, meaty and dense. The worst poses are the inversions and crunches. I spend most of the class lying down, struggling not to throw up.

There is a nutrition aspect to the Modern Yogi Project – a juice cleanse halfway through, which I don’t do. They don’t really push it. In the Monday night meeting Adam says he has met yogis who are frequently on juice cleanses, and if you’re not careful with the intention behind your cleanse, it can be just another form of eating disorder. I’ve been down that road before and I’m done with detoxes.

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By week five my body is showing signs of wear and tear from all the exercise. Some ancient exhaustion reappears. My left hip aches. I see a physio and he presses his body weight right onto me. I sweat with pain. I have an injury on the left side that he believes is caused by turning off my glutes and overusing my front hip muscles. It’s a yoga injury – repetitive rather than sudden, probably from too many warrior poses. When I walk, I feel like an invisible hand is pulling my left leg out of my hip joint (Oh, what a feeling! What a terrible, weird feeling!) but also I’m quite pleased. This means I’ve joined some elite world – an athlete’s world, where people have sporting injuries.

I tell people even when they don’t ask: ‘You may have noticed I’m walking a bit funny … well, would you believe I’m doing so much yoga that I have an injury? Not serious, but still … I guess that’s what happens when you exercise – you know, vinyasa, every day.’

I’m not the only one. A week later I’m getting a pedicure at a nail bar in Bondi (one of the problems with yoga is you spend a lot of time staring at your feet) and another customer recognises me.

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