A few years ago, I have dared myself to get back on track with my fitness by joining in a dance class. It’s not just the usual dance, sweating and enjoying the music. It’s a kind of dance people would have double standards with, nonetheless, I have taken the first step and that was to sign myself up to a course. The pain and perseverance I had to endure to learn new tricks and to gain strength along the way was way more effort than I ever think I can push myself. The dare was mostly to build self-confidence again and to awaken the flexibility I used to have from my former cheerleading days. Years passed by but I felt there’s still lacking in the pole and aerial training that I’m into.
Alongside the aerial life, I peered into my diet and saw that I could have more potential toning my body to look even more fit and be able to lift myself more easily in inversions and climbs. I’ve associated myself into a group of girls who were into extreme physical fitness by not just going for pole, they also balance it with swimming, running and gym fitness. What better way toinspire myself is just to look at the people I’m surrounded with. So I got into the zone. Hence, the newbie in bodybuilding.
If there’s a big talk about discipline, I would personally say it’s the proper healthy eating way. We could easily derail ours
elves from our intended path by the diet we were attuned to before. The consistency would vary from a person’s deep wanting to transform. I have my ups and downs, needless to say hormones fluctuate from time to time. It’s a challenge on a daily menu basis. However, my strength has improved in a lot of ways, I’ve my dedicated trainer to thank for. I’ve never seen myself pull-up more than 4x, now developed to 10x. Strength, agility, endurance all are in a work in progress at the moment. Yet, I feel the lack of wholeness in this bodybuilding regime.
I have delved deeply into what is lacking. What makes me, a complete me in the kind of physical trainings that I do? I have flexibility and upper body strength in the form of aerial fitness, I have benefitted a lot in bodybuilding with proper nutrition while strengthening and enlarging muscles. All are physical outcome. The physique that I want to portray to others. Deep within, I know that I needed to come back and know myself more and think how else can I improve – mentally, emotionally and spiritually. 
This is where Yoga comes in. Yoga is an all-encompassing lifestyle for me. It holds up the strength, flexibility and flow with the touch of my mental, emotional and spiritual stability. I feel more grounded and reflective as a person. The benefit of some styles in yoga while in transition is like a perfect mirror onto the practitioner, because the only thing that changes from one practice to the next is the practitioner, making the sequence somewhat more of a reflection of the person doing it than the sequence itself. The sublime beauty of yoga is its aliveness and evolving nature as one steps onto a mat, while trying their best doing the technique, connecting the body, breath, stillness and engaging all the anatomical parts (muscles, skeletal, etc.). Personally, I see yoga as beneficial and sustainable.
To keep the dynamism between the aerial and bodybuilding, injecting yoga in-between as a warm up, cooling down or a complete sequence on its own has made me more knowledgeable with my body – the use of each muscles, proper adjustments and to see the importance of recovery time.
Your body loves you, but if you do not love your life, it will end it far sooner, thinking it is doing you a favour.
By : Erica
