"I thought yoga was all fake hippies, preachy vegans, beautiful people from Instagram."

I am so very grateful that LYFE has moved into my neighbourhood. I have always had an on again/off again love affair with health and fitness. I’m an avid gym goer and semi regular runner, and my goal has always been to keep myself in good shape to combat the ailments of aging.  

I remember my older brother saying to me years ago "I exercise so that I can still stand up when I get older,” and that one statement has been ingrained in my mind ever since. Through regular exercise, I discovered that it also benefitted my state of mind. Naturally, this progression led to my interest in yoga. 

To be honest, however, I was always reluctant to actually go to a yoga studio. I tried hot yoga and bought a 10-class pass at a studio, but only ended up using six. I felt that the classes seemed to get harder the more I went, and I didn’t love the feeling that I was going to die while sucking the hot air dry air into my poor suffering lungs. It wasn’t my scene. 

Instead, I found an app that seemed to serve my purpose. So, on and off over the past four years I would use my app and do my yoga in the privacy of my own home. Only I could never get the practice to be a regular part of my routine, it just wouldn’t stick. I generally felt good after practicing, but I would just keep doing the same routines, and eventually it became mundane. I felt like I was missing the point.

I had thought about trying out an actual yoga studio again but by this point I already had pre-concieved ideas of what to expect. Fake hippies, preachy vegans, beautiful people ripped straight from Instagram and all the superficial love, no thank you, not for me. I'll just keep doing my yoga at home where I'm "safe", away from all the fake namaste bullshit and I wouldn't have to deal with my social anxieties.

And then came LYFE. Two weeks of free classes as an opening special you say!? As I always like to say, “If it's free, it's for me". I had nothing to lose, I didn't have to commit to anything, I didn't have to pay for anything and if I though it was all a bunch of crap, I never had to go back.

Well, the sceptic in me was about to get a very shocking awakening. The first class I attended was Heidi's Monday afternoon Yin Class, I didn't even know what Yin Yoga was at this point, all I knew was that one of my old housemates used to come home "yoga stoned" from yin and I wanted some of that action. 60 minutes later and my mind had already been changed. Where had yoga been all my life? Why had I been so blindly stubborn? Why had nobody told me realistically how good yoga is? 

I realised even if they had, I wouldn't have been ready to accept it anyway. Now I had found it for myself, when I was ready. After my second class, which was Christinas yin class, I already had started to feel calmer and had started to process things in my life differently, more diplomatically and calmly, more mindfully. 

In the first two weeks of LYFE opening I think I attended a class nearly everyday, I was hooked. All my preconceptions clearly turned out to be wrong, there was no pretentious air, yoga wasn't a cult, no one tried to lure me into anything I wasn't interested in or preach to me about alternative lifestyles. 

I felt entirely comfortable, and the loving, caring and happiness was actually real. These people seemed genuinely happy that I had entered their space and were so welcoming. The only thing I did get right was the fact that there are a lot of beautiful people. All the teachers and the other yogis that I have met since practicing at LYFE have been so lovely and welcoming and I can feel that genuine friendships are being built.

Namaste, and see you on the mat!