Well, how I first discovered yoga was pretty straightforward – About 2 years ago, my girlfriend bought a Groupon voucher and decided to ask me along.
When I first heard of it, I was like: Let’s do it! Singapore is so boring; It’s always the same old activities that we do together so why not try something new and at the same time, we get to exercise.
I went for my first class and I had a couple of thoughts afterwards:
- WOAH. I’m the only guy in the room?
- The shower has no queue!
- Whoever said that yoga is just stretching must have not done yoga before
If I was single at that moment, I would probably love to go back for more yoga sessions – the ratio of girls to guys is like 15:1 (but of course, that’s an inappropriate thought to harbour). Haha okay, I’m just kidding. What gradually “hooked” me onto yoga was the fact that it actually made me discover muscles that I never knew existed and I felt really chill after practising it each time. It wasn’t before long that we signed up for a yoga package at the studio after we have exhausted the Groupon vouchers.
In my first year, I wasn’t really practising it much and hence, my progress was really slow. I treated it more like a weekly exercise to keep myself healthy. And guess what, the studio unexpectedly closed down and poof! There goes my package and my weekly practices. There was quite a long hiatus before my girlfriend chanced upon another Groupon voucher at another studio (I guess I really have to thank her for giving me a second chance to discover yoga). Despite having some skepticism at first due to our prior experience, we eventually signed up for a package at this new studio.
This was one of the best decisions in my life. Nope, I’m not exaggerating.
Before I know it, I really enjoyed yoga and rather than seeing it as just a workout, I wanted to find out more about the asanas, the philosophy behind yoga and the proper alignments of every poses. I have always lived by a motto in my life (well, kinda): If you never try, you never know.
So here I am, taking my YTT and I must say that I’m enjoying every single day of it.
To be honest, I want to eventually become a yoga teacher but before I get there, there is plenty that I have to work on and I’m definitely willing to put in the time and effort towards that end-goal. Part-time/full-time? It doesn’t really matter right now as I just need to focus on passing my YTT. LOL.
To end on a serious note, yoga is not something that many guys will venture into (at least in Singapore) but I’m certainly not going to let that deter me. Wish me luck.
Step out and make your own path, instead of travelling along the structured path (i.e. deemed socially acceptable) – Master Paalu
-JP
Master Paalu and Master Wei Ling (Satya) had unknowingly dropped so many quotes in the past weeks and I happen to have recorded some of them down 🙂
