Yes, it’s true. I have indeed become an addict but luckily it’s not the kind that requires rehab or interventions. It is, however, the kind that might create the sort of danger where people don’t want to talk to me anymore (or read my Twitter updates or Facebook status) because they get fed up of hearing about it.

I have, over the past few weeks, become completely and totally addicted to Yoga.

And all I can say about that is, good lord it’s about time. I think if I could find all my jotted down New Year’s Resolutions – whether it’s online or in a notebook – I could probably go back at least five or six years and find “start doing yoga” every year.

For reasons that I can’t even understand, I never got around to it. I know resolutions aren’t often kept but that was one that I almost never even seemed to try. Many years ago, back when VCRs were more prominent than DVD players, I bought two yoga videos. I did one of them twice and I think the other is still in the shrink wrap.

I think I always had trouble getting into anything fitness related for various reasons. Mainly though, I don’t like exercise that is easily identifiable as exercise. That’s why joining a gym for me is the equivalent of taking a couple of hundred dollars and flushing it straight down the toilet. I joined a gym once. I went a handful of times and never returned. I don’t like having to go somewhere to work out and I don’t like the nature of the gym. That’s why doing kung fu worked for me. Yes, I still had to leave home to do it, but it was so much fun that getting in shape was like a pleasant side effect. That was the time when I was in the best shape of my life, my body was like a rock and I was strong, but it was something I did (six days a week, two hours a day) just because I loved learning forms and learning how to be a total martial arts machine.

I think that’s why yoga, now that I took the plunge, is working for me. I could take a class, and actually I would love to do a drop-in one day, but I can do it at home. I can find someone to teach me online or via DVD and I can do it at my own pace. I can decide how much I want to do on any given day. And it’s FUN. It’s not using weight machines, running on a treadmill, or climbing 80 flights of stairs on the stair master (which was actually my favorite thing about the gym).

I started near the end of January. On Tuesday, February 16th, it will be 21 days. They (the elusive expert “they”) say that it takes 21 days to make a habit. I think I’m already there. I’ve become obsessed. I read about yoga. I watch videos on YouTube. I got a couple of DVDs to make longer workouts.

I started at random. I had wanted to do yoga because a) I wanted to get in shape – I’m not overweight but I’m not fit, and I wanted to change that, b) I wanted to tone up and strengthen my muscles a bit, and c) I wanted something to fight back against my panic attacks. Exercise in general is good for that, but yoga especially so because of the balance and breathing.

One day my calves were hurting me. Anyone who’s been pregnant knows that ache you can get in your calves, the one that is caused by compressed nerves and then goes away when your baby is born. After Hayley, it was gone the same day. With Breanna… Well, she was born in 2005 and I’m still waiting for those aches to go away. I always thought yoga might help with that. That day when my legs were hurting yet again, I impulsively looked up sun salutations on YouTube. It was the best thing I could have done because I found Dashama demonstrating a basic Sun Salutation. I watched, then I tried. I followed this one:

It was love at first sight. Hmm. First stretch? Whatever.

Dashama is a teacher who travels around the world to instruct people about yoga and she has a 30 Day Yoga Challenge. I loved doing the Sun Salutation (shaky balance and lack of flexibility and all!) so I signed up, which meant I would get a link to a yoga video on YouTube every day (sometimes with bonus videos). I started off doing three rounds of Sun Salutations (or 6 altogether – 3 for each side) followed by the video of the day.

These days I average about 30-45 minutes of yoga because I go back and do some of the old videos as well, creating my own workout depending on what I feel like doing. Today I did my Sun Salutations, a round of vinyasas, inner thigh stretches, another set of different vinyasas, and my daily video which was a variation of the Sun Salutation that required a lot more balance than the basic type. I had to force myself to stop at that point because I was hungry but I was tempted to do shoulder stretches too.

Some days I throw in some cardio and some ab work for fun. Most days I don’t really need abs because a lot of the yoga works the core so hard that it’s not necessary for extra effort.

I don’t know where this yoga beast came from but I’m loving it. In just three weeks I can see so much difference. My balance is improving – I never could have done the Sun Salutation variation before because there were so many moves that required core strength to stay upright but I did it extremely well. My flexibility isn’t perfect but it’s much better. I can now do Downward-Facing Dog with my hands and my feet flat to the floor and my knees perfectly straight, and my next goal is to be able to fold down so that my forehead can touch my knee while doing leg stretches.

In the meantime, I think about yoga and talk about it more than I’d ever imagined possible. I read about it on blogs and in articles on yoga websites. I’ve joined a few groups on Facebook that revolve around it. I find myself randomly doing Tree Pose while standing in the kitchen, waiting for supper to cook. It’s definitely a habit by now.

Oh and my calves? Interestingly, they haven’t hurt in that annoying ache at all in at least two weeks. The only time things ache in my body now is when I’ve worked a muscle group really hard and that’s they kind of ache I like, the kind that says, “hey, I *did* something!”

So that’s what’s been going on lately. I get up, do the school routine with Hayley, have breakfast, wait 20 minutes, and then I do my yoga. Every day, without fail.

There’s no 12-step program for yoga addiction is there? Because I’d like to avoid it if there is.