fit | Sam from Amsterdam

so before today I had only ever sorta taken half a yoga class. In highschool me and my friends went on a visitors pass and took a class. But because of our constant giggling we left half way through.

In these last few weeks I’ve been wondering if I had been doing the poses right, or was I pushing to hard? I really don’t have a clue.. I looked around here in cullman if there was a place were yoga classes were given. To my surprise there was! “Santosha yoga,” is the name of the studio. I checked times this morning and there was a class at 9:30 that I could make. I quickly signed up, grabbed my May and headed out the door. I didn’t know what to expect. I came in and was greeted by the instructor, everyone waved hello and seemed friendly.

I rolled out my mat and we sat down. We immediately started. I’m guessing it wasn’t 10 minutes into the class and my arms were already burning and I was working up a sweat. To my surprise I kept up with the class pretty good on most poses. My balance is something I’m proud of, but as for my flexibility I have a loooong way to go. We did this one pose where we spread out legs wide and had to fold our chest to the ground. Everyone was close to nose to the ground while I was still sitting straight up! That was as fat as I could go.

We did another pose called bird in paradise, I was a little lost at first, but after watching I did a motivated version of it. So proud of myself!

I was mostly surprised by the effect of the breathing aspect of it. Doing yoga at home I hadn’t really paid much attention to that. I’d watched a video here and there, but usually while watching tv and I would just kinda follow along with the poses but didn’t listen to the instructor in the video.

I had seen child’s pose before, looking up new poses to do. But it looked boring to me, just laying my head on the ground with my knees tucked in. But today doing child’s pose and taking deep breaths I finally understood the sensation of feeling the energy going through your body. I could feel the breath opening up my ribs and could feel the nerves in my neck all the way down my spine.

I recommend everyone that’s a new by to yoga like me, to take a class. It sure benefit me and helped me in continuing my practice

so I was watching Michele Obama’s interview on The tonight show with Jimmy Fallon. I was surprised that with all the things going on in the world, her main focus right now seems to be obesity. That must mean that it is a growing problem in the country, and honestly every western country right now. I know that your whole life you’ve been told that in Europe people are thin and in shape… I’m gonna tell you right now, that ain’t true! Every time I return to the Netherlands I’m surprised by the growing amount of overweight people. In Europe there are more and more fast food restaurants opening up. When I was growing up, all we had was McDonalds and Burger King, but now the rest of the unhealthy chains are making their way over the ocean. Obesity, though, is still not a big problem over there. In the south, every time I walk into a restaurant there’s at least 3 people that have tightly squeezed themselves into a booth. Stained covered shirts, because they’re not able to bend over to their food.. I’m not making fun, it just looks so miserable. Although I’m not making fun, I also feel no sympathy for obesity, you’re the one controlling what goes into your mouth every day. Whenever I see people that are overweight at the gym, or are walking outside, I always try to encourage! I understand it feels horrible when everyone gets to see your first steps towards a healthy life, when you’re huffin’ and puffin’ just walking a little faster, but everyone has to start somewhere. People tell me all the time how lucky I am that I have “good genes.” Now that just pisses me off, If I wouldn’t work out everyday and eat whatever the hell I wanted, I would be 200 pounds by the end of the year, easily!

For kids it’s a different story.. Personally, when I see an obese kid, I think it’s child abuse.. the parents are taking away a childhood by letting them eat so many sweets, they’re unable to run and play. I think it’s good that kids are learning about nutrition in school now, but it’s such a strange shift from when I was younger. I guess I was the last generation that didn’t have video games and smart phones. I hear commercials now saying that kids need to be outside for 30-60 minutes a day and be active. When I was younger our moms had a hard time getting us inside and settling us down to go to bed. My moms rule was, you can be outside until the city lights come on and then we’d have to haul butt to the house. In the winter times this was around 5pm, but in the summer time sometimes the lights wouldn’t come on till 10:30! Just another reason I don’t want children, I guess now you can’t get a break from them at all! they’re just inside getting fat and playing video games! 😉