28 Mar 2017

Trying Lyra

Growing up, I didn’t have too many options to choose from when it came to exercising or participating in a sport. If you were a kid, you could either do soccer, softball, or basketball. Well, I sort of gave each one a shot, but nothing ever felt stuck or rather, I never felt like I belonged. I was a petite girl (still am today!) and I didn’t enjoy running – something that is involved in almost every sport every kid my age was in. As an adult, staying healthy and being active is important to me. It’s not in my top 5 priorities, but I am very aware that I’m not going to have my metabolism forever and the work I put into my health and wellness now will serve me better as I age.

In the fall, Sandy asked a few of us if we’d be interested in trying a Lyra class with her. I hadn’t ever done it, but looked it up before I headed to the class and thought because of how tiny I was that it would be doable. I had been going indoor rock climbing on/off for the last few years and knew I had some upper body strength. Well, when I say I had been going indoor rock climbing, what I really mean is that that was the last form of exercise I had done and I probably hadn’t gone back in a year so that upper body strength I thought I was equipped with? Gone.

First off, please excuse for the not so high quality photos. I know it looks like I’m making it seem easy in these photographs, but the girls I went with all know how much I struggled. It was hard for me to even push myself off the ground let alone get into the hoop and balance myself. These two poses were done at the very end of the class and even then I had little hope that I would be able to pull them off! Lyra isn’t about endurance, but more so strength and a whole lot of patience, which I realized I clearly didn’t have at the end of the session. Would I try Lyra again? Potentially! However, now as an adult, there are so many different classes you can take – many options that I didn’t have when I was a kid and I’m really excited that I get to choose from them all.