Balance
When people ask me “Is all you do yoga to stay fit?” I say “Absolutely not.” It always surprises me when I meet people that only do one thing, and that’s it. Yes yoga is amazing, but you can have too much of anything, the most common thing in when it comes to yogis and injury is hyper-flexibility. The best thing for the body is muscle confusion. If you’re constantly doing the same thing over and over, the body eventually will get used to and hits a plateau and stops progressing. So it’s best to switch it up, keep your body guessing, and literally keep yourself on your toes.
So what do I do to switch it up? I actually do a few things; I’ve always been a lover of the ocean and have been surfing since I was 15, so surf when I can. One of my favorite things to do is Capoeira, which is a Brazilian martial art, if you’ve never heard of it YouTube it now. But what I do most regularly to counter balance is CrossFit. Gnarly? Yes. But that’s why I love it. I don’t think you could get more polar opposite of yoga than CrossFit, but at the same time my coaches always tease me saying “You bring your Namaste to CrossFit.” In other words I use the foundation I’ve built in yoga to help with my CrossFit. I ALWAYS listen to my body, and never sacrifice proper alignment for getting in more reps or lifting a heavier weight. Part of this is keeping my ego in check, a lot of people get super competitive and to concerned with doing more than the person next to them, and this is what leads to injury. Just like with yoga, I don’t do CrossFit to compete with the other people in the room but to keep my body strong and healthy, so I listen to my body, shut out the ego, and breath.