Just before the start of September, Tracy posted a link from livestrong with a “one a day yoga pose challenge.” Three of us agreed to do it every day and to check in on our group page; a few others dipped in and out as the month progressed.
Here’s what Nicole says about it: When I first saw the suggestion (I think from Tracy) to do the Livestrong 30 day yoga challenge, one pose, twice a day for 60 seconds, I thought, ¨Do I want to add another thing to my list of to-dos?” But, then, when it started and I decided to participate, I knew early on I was enjoying this challenge.If you´ve read some of my other posts, you may have seen me mention before that I am pretty consistent with running, strength and conditioning workouts, walking a lot, spinning, but that, when it comes to yoga, it´s often the first thing to go. I always enjoy my 108 solstice practice, Yoga With Adriene´s 30 day challenge in January and have loved many yoga practices over the years, but I don´t always feel like doing yoga, But, whether it was in my living room, or while I was in a Chicago hotel for 4 days, I enjoyed the reminder and ease of ¨do one yoga pose a day¨.
Often, these reminders became, “do a short YWA session that includes that pose, incorporate that pose at the gym, do other poses to lead up to things, such as pigeon pose.” Of course, the camaraderie of seeing Tracy and Cate post how they incorporated the daily pose in their day added to the fun. Sam even mentioned at one point that the challenge had encouraged her to roll her mat out in her office. Also, it never gets old, reminding myself how grateful my joints and muscles are when I give them a little love in the form of a rest, a stretch or conscious breathing. It’s also interesting to me that, once I start a challenge such as this, I am inclined to finish it, which doesn´t always jive with my mental baggage of not always completing things, in the past, but it reminds me that when it is important to me, I am a completest, old baggage be damned.
Tracy also had a full experience:As I said in the blog post back at the beginning of this challenge, I like very easy challenges. And yoga is one of my things. And daily yoga always makes me feel good. What I liked: 1. It got me doing yoga every day, 2. Often I did more, 3. It was fun to do something with a small group who was also doing it, so it reminded me of how simple it is to develop a sense of camaraderie around activity. It also became clear to me that though I am minimalist, one yoga pose doesn’t feel like enough. On the most satisfying days I incorporated the challenge pose into a larger practice. 
For me (Cate), the challenge was actually a fairly profound engagement with my body, and with noticing some important things about myself. I did it all but two days, with varying degrees of ease. Sometimes it was just the one pose, sitting deliciously in butterfly on my sister’s living room floor, loosening up the tightness of a lot of walking and too much standing for work. Sometimes I paused multiple times during a work day to add the pose: cobra, downward dog and cat/cow were particularly good for “ahhhhh” moments, re-engaging my embodied self as I flurried along in my cognitive and busy life. Sometimes, I turned the pose into a short flow, asking myself over and over “why don’t I do this every morning?” And sometimes, it was a last minute “oh damn, did I do this,” putting myself for a minute or two into a yogic squat in my pj’s as I was about to get into bed.
I missed two days, and this was also really useful to notice: I skipped shivasana, which says a lot about how I was resisting rest during this super busy time, maybe feeling like I couldn’t just find rest easily, or that if I let myself sink into shivasana, I might not get up. The other day I missed was pigeon, a pose I hate at the best of times — it was a really busy day but there was a reason I didn’t remember. Again, the pose I need most of all.
We also noticed that some poses don’t lend themselves easily to “just do this one pose” — you can’t really yank yourself into camel or pigeon out of nowhere, and I found that doing tree on its own was also impossible for me. Something something about balance in my life, no doubt. But this also connected, for me, to the challenge we introduced for October: a simple squat challenge, increasing by five a day, with occasional rest days.
I’ve begun the squat challenge, but I’m not going to continue it. It feels like a brutal “strengthbuilding for no reason” practice to me. It’s like, here, do some squats. Now do some more. No real purpose. I did the 25 yesterday while waiting for my baggage at the airport, my carryon on my back. I’m sure it was useful in some way, and it generated some eyebrows from others, but it did nothing for my mental agility, for the rest and pause that the one yoga pose a day did.
For me, the yoga challenge was a reminder to step out of my daily churn and take a moment to feel my body, feel present, be in the moment and remember my grounded self. It was a deeply grounding practice, even if only 2 minutes a day. That’s what I need. The squats are an external practice, pure strength, with no unhooking of the intensity of my life.
Like Tracy and Nicole, I appreciated the daily check ins for the yoga challenge. I like the camaraderie. I’m going to keep checking in on our page — but I’m going back to the beginning of the yoga challenge. And this time, I’ll do the shivasana.
Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede-Desmarais, who is currently in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and traditional lands of the Mi’kmaq people.
I love doing Yoga.