Stretching Myself

One of my top goals for 2013 was to swallow my always pervasive trepidation and stretch myself (literally and figuratively) by taking a real live yoga class. In preparation, I bought a three-DVD beginner's yoga set and set to work...approximately half a dozen times...before I got distracted by a newfound interest in what I deemed a more strenuous but doable workout, Pilates, and temporarily shelved (if not completely abandoned), my previous yoga interest.

Throughout the year, I continually chose other pursuits, including swimming lessons from July through December, over the yoga classes I vowed to take. The only exception was a free yoga/nutrition workshop last June that introduced me to basic, relaxing stretches and slightly weakened my fear that real yoga might be out of the realm of possibility for someone with my ridiculous lack of balance and flexibility. So there I was stuck in a self-defeating belief that yoga was either too difficult or too meditative to provide the kind of results I could get from a Jillian Michaels workout, for example.

Fast forwarding to 2014 (this week, to be precise), I was presented with a golden opportunity: free (always my keyword) twice-weekly yoga classes at my workplace, beginning fifteen minutes after my workday ends (just enough time to catch my breath, change my clothes, grab my mat, and walk down the hall). Really, other than pathological fear, what excuse reason could I have not to give it a whirl (at the very least)? After all, my life motto is to try new things once; if the experience is horrific, I never have to try it again.

So, off to work I went yesterday, with a change of clothes and my workout mat in hand. I can't say I wasn't terrified at the prospect, especially after hearing that the first session (which I missed) had 40 participants! (Cue social-anxiety attack.) Let's face it: yoga is intimidating for anyone who isn't an experienced yogi, and even more so when you're surrounded by that many people. Thankfully, my fear of an anxiety attack was unfounded, as there were surprisingly only eight other female participants, in addition to a female instructor, who ranged from beginner (like me) to advanced in skill level. 

Some of my new moves.

The session itself was quite advanced and fast-paced for me. The instructor showed us a series of poses done in succession, called sun salutations, moving quickly (too quickly!) from pose to pose as I struggled to keep up (and struggled to mirror her movements, having to stop several times to shift from left to right to left - one of the challenges of a workout class, I guess, when the instructor is standing in front of you rather than next to you). Only a few poses in, I felt a sudden sharp pain in my neck. Fearing I'd pulled a muscle that would prevent me from turning my head, I briefly paused and wondered if I should stop and tell the instructor. But not wanting to fall behind, or stand out any more than I self-consciously thought I might, I gritted my teeth and trooped along as the discomfort blessedly receded. 

Overall, aside from the neck strain, I think I held my own, though there's tremendous room for improvement. The victory for me is that I want to go back next week even though my yoga skills are less than impressive. Quite a feat for this hard-nosed perfectionist.

Anyway, my worst fear, which took the general form of me crashing into a heap while everyone around me expertly struck and held graceful poses, was not realized, which was a huge relief. (I did lose my balance a few times, but so did everyone else, including the instructor.) When I left an hour later, I felt rejuvenated, stretched, and fully worked out, just like I feel after any good bout of exercise. 

Maybe yoga is for me after all. Maybe there's an inner yogi within me patiently waiting to break out into a fierce warrior pose. Maybe I should crack open those DVDs and get in some practice before next week!

Olympic Fever

The Olympics have once more rolled around, and I'm happier than a proverbial pig in dung. (As a result, my DVR is on the brink of combustion, but no matter.)

The Winter Olympics, which opened in Sochi, Russia, last week, have been a firm fixture every four years in my life, starting with the 1998 games in Nagano, Japan. This is my Super Bowl, my World Cup, my Final Four, and my World Series. (I honestly couldn't care less about those events, unlike many Americans.) This is what makes my heart pound, my pulse quicken, my nerves go into overdrive, and my emotions run wild. Every four years, the figure-skating events are my non-stop sporting thrill.

(For the record, I've tried watching the other sports, but I inevitably end up fast-forwarding through them...thank you, DVR!...to get to the figure-skating action. Back in the old pre-DVR days, they were little more than background noise and images as I anxiously awaited the true object of my affection. I guess I'm simply a one-sport woman, just as I was a one-man woman prior to throwing in the towel on dating.)

I suppose you could say that the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, with its Tonya-Nancy drawing card (which, as all true skating fans know, was really more of an Oksana-Nancy showdown for gold, and a very controversially-judged one at that), was my first, though I recall watching only the ladies' free-skate portion of the competition. That was enough to pull me in at the formative age of 11.

From then on, I was hooked. I literally counted my birthday-money change to purchase the 1994 figure-skating competition highlights VHS at Walmart the following year to see what I'd missed (a lot, as it turned out), and I watched it endlessly. When the next Winter Olympics cycled, you can bet I didn't miss a second of the action, from the Opening Ceremonies to the Closing Ceremonies, probably driving my family to distraction with my obsession, which they didn't share.

2002 and 2006 followed suit. 2010 was special for me because, for the first time in my life, I had my own TV, in my own place, and full control of the remote. I could finally watch as much as I wanted without annoying family members or squabbling for TV privileges.

Throughout those years, it has been the compelling continuing stories, the brave, determined, sometimes successful and sometimes heartbreakingly futile quests for Olympic gold, and all the fame and glory that accompany it, that have touched me most deeply, especially those of Russia's Evgeni Plushenko (over four Olympics) and Michelle Kwan (through 2 1/2).

Michelle Kwan

As I've previously written (Figure Skating: An Appreciation), Michelle Kwan is the first skater I can recall ever watching on TV as she competed at the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships as a very tiny 13-year-old jumping bean, so it's natural that I developed an affinity for her and her increasingly mature and masterful skating. She finished second that year, but wasn't awarded one of the U.S.'s two spots due to the Olympic Committee's inevitable decision to give the second spot to the injured Nancy Kerrigan. (Tonya Harding, of course, was given the other.)

It was far from over for Kwan, however. Four years later, she went into the Olympics as a favorite for gold, skated extremely well, and just barely lost to Tara Lipinski, who burst on the scene like she'd been shot from a cannon just a few years earlier. Four years later, Kwan had another shot at the Olympics, this time in her home country, with her fiercest competitor, Russia's Irina Slutskaya, expected to challenge her for gold. Would she finally get her long-awaited (and much-deserved, in my opinion) gold medal? Unbelievably, like a practical joke taken too far, it was yet another teenager, her teammate Sarah Hughes, who (literally) jumped from behind to nab the gold.

 

Four years later, Kwan, whose competitive condition was in question, due to injuries and lackluster results, wanted one more chance at elusive gold, the only one missing from her impressive repertoire, which U.S. officials (somewhat controversially) awarded her despite her inability to compete at the national championships. It wasn't controversial to me. I felt I wanted that gold medal for her almost as badly as I imagine she wanted it for herself.

And when she made the excruciating decision to withdraw - forfeiting her final golden opportunity - because of her injuries? I was devastated for her and for myself. She had pulled me in from that first performance and kept me there throughout the highs (world and national titles) and the lows (the Olympic silver and bronze and late-career struggles) of the subsequent 12 years. 

There have been many other skaters since she last competed, but none like her.

Evgeni Plushenko

Much like Michelle Kwan, I can easily recall the first time (fall 1999 at a Grand Prix event) I saw Evgeni Plushenko, a young (my age, in fact) superhuman jumping machine compete. Over the next few years, he steamrolled his competitors, the only exception being fellow Russian Alexei Yagudin, his former training mate, who was his only true technical and artistic match. These two champions, who traded off championship titles between them in the prior years, faced off spectacularly at the 2002 Olympics, where Yagudin skated brilliantly to the gold after Plushenko uncharacteristically fell in the short program and settled for silver. 

Four years later, he was hungrier than ever, nearly undefeated, and nearly unbeatable going into the 2006 Olympics, which he won easily by a massive margin. Surprisingly (or perhaps not, considering the depth of his competitive fire), one gold wasn't enough; he wanted more. In 2010, after taking a break from competition, he returned, expecting another gold rush, only to be upset by American Evan Lysacek. Plushenko, never one to endure defeat quietly or graciously, was outspoken with his displeasure at losing gold to what he deemed an inferior performance by an inferior competitor. Be that as it may, Plushenko earned his second silver with an arguably sloppy, second-rate performance, which was clearly more of a defeat than a victory for this fierce champion. 

 

The next years passed quietly as Canadian Patrick Chan ascended Plushenko's vacated throne as the man to beat. As the 2014 Olympics approached, however, rumors of Plushenko's unlikely comeback, following multiple surgeries and competitive absences, were confirmed. Plushenko was named to the Russian Olympic team, despite not winning his national championship, despite not competing at the world championships or Grand Prix series, and despite not competing at the 2014 European Championships, in place of his much younger, though less competitively commanding teammates.

I followed the news reports on figure-skating fan forums, where opinions were mixed, but mostly negatively, with growing amazement and apprehension. Plushenko was too old (at 31) and too injured to compete with Chan and the dynamic Japanese men (a view they seemed to share). I had seen too little of Plushenko (and his competitors) during the past four years to know if that was true. 

So I tuned into the team competition last week to see what (if anything) Plushenko could do, and hoping against hope that this amazing champion whom I'd watched for so long wouldn't embarrass himself or his country.

As it turned out, I needn't have worried. Plushenko was unbelievable. He successfully pulled off a couple quads and some flawless triple Axels...and admittedly little else, but I had tears in my eyes watching him shut down his many doubters, leading his team to his second gold and fourth overall Olympic medal. 

Who knows how (or if!) he'll skate during the men's individual final later this week, but, for him, this unexpected set of performances and well-deserved medal had to represent a mission accomplished.