Tales from the Mat: Rachel’s story

Rachel Hancox, yogidup author

I never thought I was a yoga person. I associated it with lithe, bronzed women like the ones in Big Little Lies, or perhaps with a slightly shady kind of Westernised mysticism. I was unfit, lazy and definitely cynical – cynical, above all, about any prospect of my body being able to twist itself into the outlandish shapes required by a yoga class, let alone about the possibility of me enjoying the process. And as for my mind: I’m a novelist, used to being absorbed by what’s going on around me – to describing, analysing, speculating. No chance, I thought, of turning my attention inwards, to a wordless contemplation of muscles and tendons, balance and breathing.

But an annual review at the GP convinced me that I needed to make some changes to my life. The question had to be faced: what was the most painless and effective way of getting fitter and stronger? I’d joined a health club so that I could swim with my daughter, and they offered free classes of various different kinds – so I took my courage in my hands and resolved to try a few out.  

The first time I walked into the yoga studio I had a terrible feeling that I was about to be humiliated. Sure, not everyone looked like Nicole Kidman. And thankfully the lights were low. But there were mirrors. There were people already limbering up in an expert-looking way. There was nowhere to hide. I sidled up to Joy, at the front of the room, and mumbled apologetically that I’d never done any yoga before and was bound to be hopeless. She smiled, and said I should give it a go, just do what I could, but that yoga wasn’t about being good or bad. You haven’t seen me in action yet, I thought. But I found myself a mat, and a space at the back, and sat down. That I could do, at least. I’ve always liked sitting on the floor, but it had never been very useful before. I snuck a look in the mirror, and convinced myself I didn’t look so different from everyone else.

That first class was harder than I expected. But it was harder because – coaxed by Joy’s clear, calm instructions – I attempted almost every pose, every movement, that everyone else did. By the end I was sweaty and my muscles ached. I was proud of myself – and I was very surprised. I liked yoga. I wasn’t as terrible at it as I expected. OK, there’d been the moment when everyone else descended slowly and gracefully to the floor from a plank position and I collapsed in an undignified heap, and it was clear to me that I was NEVER going to be able to balance on one leg, but it turned out that I was actually quite supple, for reasons I couldn’t explain. I could do frog legs and side twists with the best of them. Once or twice, when I’d sneaked a look at my neighbours, I could see that I’d stretched some part of me further than they had. 

BUT – and this was the most important lesson from that first yoga class – the other thing that was clear to me already was that Joy hadn’t been pandering to my novice’s nerves when she said that yoga wasn’t about being good or bad. Wasn’t, as she said in almost every class from then onwards, about what things looked like on the outside, or what shape your particular body could make. Wasn’t about reaching an acceptable standard, and certainly not about comparing yourself to other people.

After that class I stopped looking at what anyone else was doing. I tried not to look in the mirror, either. Instead I started paying attention to what was going on inside me. To the edge, the challenge, the stretch and balance and freedom and constraint I felt in different poses. To the effect of tiny adjustments, and to differences between one side of my body and the other, or one day and next.

It didn’t take long for me to be become a yoga junkie. Soon I was going twice or three times a week to Joy’s classes. I kept going because it was fun, and I looked forward to it, but slowly it began to change me. I got stronger, so that the heap I collapsed in when descending from plank became a little less undignified. My balance improved until I could sometimes manage tree position for several amazing seconds. I started to think of downward-facing dog as a comfortable position to rest in, rather than a horrible torture. And the benefits were measurable: my blood pressure came down, and I had more energy. I began to have a sense of my body working for me in a way it never had before – and I was aware of feeling different in an emotional sense, too. I was calmer, happier, less fraught. It’s hard to distentangle the physical and psychological effects, to be honest, but a year or so into my yoga journey, I’m increasingly aware that that’s the whole point. That yoga is a training (and a therapy) for both the mind and the body. It teaches you that they’re part of the same whole – a self-evident fact that most of us have forgotten. I only have one word of warning: once you start doing yoga, you won’t be able to stop. Even if you’re definitely not a yoga person.

Learn more about Rachel and her wonderful novels here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/284060/rachel-hancox?tab=penguin-biography