Tala Sleman

I started practicing yoga exactly one year ago – January 1st, 2023 – and had never done yoga before. The first few classes were great, but nothing crazy. I just felt good about working out again – I was in the process of moving, so I had stopped working out for a few weeks -. I was in a new neighbourhood, and wanted to find a new gym to work out in. Initially, I didn’t think much about it, but after a few weeks, something clicked. It was weird, you know, when you think about yoga, when you haven’t done yoga, you think it’s mostly stretching and a little bit of chill poses. But I was so wrong. Slowly, practice after practice, I kind of became obsessed because I saw how challenging it was, and how hard I had to work to master some aspects – like breath and strength.

Then, one day, I went to a random class, and the teacher just put herself into crow pose. If you don’t know what crow pose is, essentially you’re balancing on your arms, with your legs tucked on your forearms (Kind of like a supported Tucked Planche) Now, wait a minute, what is this pose? Is this possible? Is she crazy? She’s just… balancing… on her arms? And after another few classes, I started seeing some crazy poses. One that really caught my eye was the Pincha Mayurasana – The foreram stand, it’s an inversion. Like a handstand but with your forearms -. And that’s when I truly fell in love. I had done weight lifting before, but it just wasn’t the same. Yoga was art, strength, flexibility, an immense challenge, a step outside my comfort zone, but also fun to practice. I had found myself. This was about one or two months into my yoga journey.

Then, I decided. I’m going to get serious about doing this. I started attending regularly and gave myself one (crazy) goal: to do a really advanced pose that I would never have thought possible in my right mind, the Pincha Mayurasana. Okay, yeah, maybe that was stupid. I was literally just a beginner, someone who is very vanilla about her workouts. Hmm. Well, where to begin? I couldn’t even do the crow pose yet. So, gotta started with the basics. I decided then and there that I would do all in my power to achieve this, no matter how much time it took.

I began attending the more funky classes. Of course, I couldn’t do much at first – I could actually do almost none of the poses – but it was an introduction to a whole new world. I got to try arm balances, like the crow, and eventually, around March/April, I got it. It wasn’t great, but it was something. That’s when I saw my first improvement. I had achieved something I never thought possible in my life. After sometime, I started feeling comfortable with the crow pose, and I still attended regular, moderately difficult classes, which were still challenging for me. Now, at home, I practiced the Pincha every day. An failed miserably each time. I think I practiced a few weeks before I realized it was too soon for the Pincha; I mean, I was still a baby yogi… I couldn’t even do a headstand to begin with!

Then, it hit me. My next step was the headstand. Uncharted territory. Luckily, at this point, there was a special intro to headstands class at my local studio, and I registered right away. Okay. Let me tell you, it was embarrassing. I felt like everyone else in the class got the hang of it, but I didn’t. It was a two-hour class, and by the end of it, I still couldn’t do something that looked like an inversion. Yeah, I felt sad. I guess it was my first big failure. Maybe some part of my thought that I would get it like the others did, or that it would be doable in 2 hours. Well, that was… not smart. If i had known how much efforts and discipline and time goes into learning something -especially as a beginner-, maybe I would have been more understanding with myself. I remember feeling down when I went home, but then I also told myself that this meant I shouldn’t quit, and I should keep working on it. So I did. And the class was not useless; the teacher taught me a lot, which I applied in my own practice.

After weeks of practice, I finally achieved the headstand.

Oh my god. I can do a headstand??? Me??? To me, this was actually amazing. I had never been someone passionate about working out, but now I realize it was because I never really tried hard enough.

Now we’re in May 2023, five months in, and I feel great. After four months of ups and downs, I could finally do my first inversion. But the goal was still far off.

And you know what? At this point in my journey, I was deep into “Can’t Hurt Me” by David Goggins, and, oh boy, if you’ve read this book, you know how motivating it is!

It just so happened that my local studio introduced a challenge – The May Challenge – where you attend as many classes as you can in one month. I registered for the challenge. All right, now I could do 20…25 classes. But, what is the real maximum I could do? Can I go over this limit that my mind has set for me? I mean, 25 seems enough, right? Now, we have 30 days to do this challenge. I see -Everyone writes their goal on a big board in the studio- that the most ambitious people will choose to do 20-30 classes in 30 days. Realistically, I thought this would be my goal too. But this is a challenge, right? I should go above and beyond, and just see where that gets me. And I did. I decided to start a competition. My body against my mind. I gave myself a number: 60 classes. This would be an average of two classes per day, or 2.5 hours of hot yoga per day. No exceptions. Okay, let’s add on that. I also challenged myself, for one day of the month, to do all the classes offered in said day.

Guess what? I achieved both goals. I came in one Sunday and did six classes in a row. Since it was hot yoga, and the room was heated, my mat was completely soaked at the end of the day from all my sweat… Not a pretty sight. After that day, I truly felt like I could have done more. I wanted to do more. I worked hard for the rest of the month, sometimes attending three classes a day, focusing on strength training classes to test my limits.

At the end of the month, I had achieved my goal, even surpassed it, completing 67 classes in 30 days – actually 26 since I started the challenge 4 days late -. It was a record. I won, against me. This was emotional. From an external viewpoint, it might seem mundane, but for me, it opened doors I never even thought existed. After that, I felt much stronger and better, despite being tight and sore every day. And I also think David Goggins had something to do with this..

Also, during that month, I regularely continued practicing my headstands. When the month ended, I felt ready to tackle the Pincha.

I started attending advanced classes with a specific teacher who gave tips for the Pincha. I listened, tried, failed, and fell (many times). I practiced like that for a month, no improvement, really. Slowly, I improved, fell less, understood more about my body’s position in space, relied more on strength and technique, and finally, in July 2023, six months into my yoga journey, I achieved the Pincha Mayurasana. 6 months of non-stop work and dedication, and I achieved my goal that honestly seemed absurd just a few months ago. I mean, at the beginning of the year, I was just a person who wanted to see what hot yoga was about. I never expected to get there. Never.

Now you may think, is this what yoga is really about? I don’t know, but I feel so much better since starting yoga, and perhaps I see things differently now. Yes, I do see it as a competition, a competition with myself.

How I see it is that my mind will always tell me things that I am convinced are true (that are probably not). For example, “I can’t hold this plank longer,” “I can’t do an inversion, it’s too advanced, I’m not this kind of person,” or “I can’t do 60 classes of hot yoga in one month, that’s not normal.” Sometimes, if I let my body take over and show my mind that what it’s saying isn’t always true, I can create a deeper connection and have a better understanding of my capabilities. I truly believe that if it weren’t for this journey – which is just starting – I wouldn’t have been able to surpass myself mentally and physically and discover this side of me that is truly passionate and ambitious. And I think this is the most positive aspect of all. After all, isn’t yoga supposed to be about the mind-body connection?

Now, at the end of 2023, it’s been 12 months since I’ve been practicing yoga, and I couldn’t be more thankful for my decision to be disciplined and persist. I absolutely love the people, the classes, the feeling, and the hard work. I will keep working hard – I am currently working on handstands – And if I have one suggestion for you, it would be to be open to new things, because it might just be the thing that changes your life. I know yoga changed mine, and I’m not going back.