Meet #IBYWarrior Ted Zajac
Everyone that I know has a "starting yoga" story that sounds like a Country song; "My body/mind/relationship was broken..."
Mine was no different and I managed to hit two out of three.
My marriage of 20 years had ended with an affair and I weighed 300 pounds. If I was 6 foot 8 inches that would be big boned but being a foot shorter I was just fat. There were two things that began my path to yoga.
First, I was driving home to try to talk my wife into staying and I spoke to my higher power. "Next time I am going to be different, drink less, eat less, be more attentive." The list was long! At the end of those promises I heard a loud voice say, "Why not start now?" I did not really believe in that sort of thing but it happened so I listened. I did all of those thing but my wife was committed to her new man so she left.
Second, when my wife left the third time in two weeks and I was really sure she was gone, I called Psych & Psych in Elyria and asked for a counselor. I got a genius wonderful woman who helped me fix me. Along the way she told me I needed to do Tai Chi or Yoga. Listening to my counselor had been working for me so I got on the internet and started to search. I could not find Tai Chi and every yoga web site had a calendar from 2005 (this was 2008). Then I found Inner Bliss and a current everything. So, I was down to a svelte 250 pounds and started taking Angela's 10:15 yoga flow all levels Saturday morning. After a couple weeks I took a Yoga 101 class from Tammy. I remember that she went around the room asking why we were here. I mentioned that I had lost 50 pounds and was absolutely astonished that people clapped. I love yoga people!
With my life change and yoga I managed to lose 125 pounds in a year.
My favorite time to practice is 5pm or 6pm because I can get home and still have an evening. That is also when my friends practice.
I have been practicing at Inner Bliss since 2008. I try to get to 4 or 5 classes a week.
I leave class feeling exhausted but calmer than when I arrived.
The pose I love most is balancing half moon because the first time the teacher showed us the pose my mind said "Oh My God, you are going to fall! You are crazy!" I did not fall.
Words that lift my heart are gentle and heartfelt words from the teacher about finding peace in a crazy life.
The breath is everything. When I was injured I would move for as long as I could then take Savasana for the rest of the class and just breathe. That worked as well as an hour of Hot Powerful Flow.
Inner Bliss is a very important part of my life. It is a community of people that are accepting and loving. I have never seen a person walk in the door angry. If a person looks tense or upset I talk to them only to see their face soften and a kind conversation begin. It is blissful :-)