Name:  Rebecca Myers

Age: 45

Occupation: Academic (Science)

What brought you to yoga?

It’s not so much what brought me to yoga, it’s who – six months ago a dear friend (and impressive yogini) brought me along one day. I had never envisaged myself and yoga in the same room before – not being one for enjoying exercise classes of any sort. My yoga expectation was all about a cold dusty hall, twisting my stiff old-self into knots and spending the rest of the week aching … I was so wrong! In a very unfocused, procrastinating sort of way I was indeed looking for ways to improve my general fitness, flexibility and all-round joie-de-vivre, but they’d been on my rediscovery list for some years. So … yoga eh? What the heck, I’d nothing to lose! What I wasn’t prepared for was the impact it would have on me from day one. I had never done any yoga before coming to Camyoga and my first class was Hot Yoga – I was a convert. I try to make as many as five classes a week now and in the last few weeks I’ve also begun to dip/pull my toe into Ashtanga. As they say – it’s all about the journey.

What do you do when you are not doing yoga?

I work (in a research environment for the University), I eat and I sleep. I do squeeze in some travel and quite a few fun things too – but my average week comprises just that.

What is your favorite yoga pose and why?

This is a hard question. There a quite a few poses I enjoy a lot as each one has different gifts. I like Trikonasana (triangle pose and its variants) as it is a good all-round full-body stretch and balance and I just like the way it feels. With poses I find more challenging (and there are loads!) such as Standing Head to Knee (Dandayamana-janushirasana) I get a real sense of achievement, especially on days when I can do it – or do it just a little better than the last class.

What is your least favorite yoga pose and why?

There are more than several poses that would fall under this category at this stage of my practice – for pure physical effort it most definitely has to be Chaturanga (the sort of half-press up). The other pose (for comedy value and personal highlight of my Hot Yoga class) is Rabbit – which opens up a whole new angle on self-administered water-boarding.

What is one quality you have taken off the mat and incorporated into your daily life?

I have reassessed a lot of how I approach life – it’s not been deep navel-gazing as such – I’ve simply created space for the (rediscovered) joie-de-vivre that seems to have emerged from my regular practice. I have neither felt fitter nor more flexible since I was in my teens, I’ve lost weight in the order of double-digits, and my diet has naturally evolved into one that is far healthier and sustains me better. I wouldn’t have had this opportunity had Camyoga and its great atmosphere and teachers not been on my doorstep. It’s a home from home.

An interesting fact about Rebecca that you may not know is…

There are rather a lot of interesting facts about me, most are classified and none of which are publishable! I am, however, a big cat lover – I have four of them. My special joy is a huge Maine Coon called ‘Cody’ who I swear is a dog-in-a-cat-suit.