Howdy! Howdy!

Until recently, I have never been one to be in good physical shape. It’s not that I hated to exercise as much as it was more like I just didn’t have the motivation. It may even be more than that and I’m thinking it may have something to do with me being a total klutz, or maybe I have some inner ear imbalance. I’ve never had it checked out. Most of the fun things I like to do require sitting whether it’s reading, computer surfing, sewing, crocheting and then some of the not so fun things like sitting in an office working.

In grade school, my parochial chums - the girls - were City of San Antonio volleyball champions. I was not. Whenever the ball came to me, I freaked. Here comes the ball, now what do I do? Quick decisions, reaction times, and lack of – , I just did not have the power to hit that ball right.

Finally, at the community college the summer of ‘69 when white man was landing on the moon (I missed the whole thing), I was learning how to swim. I was also taking a biology class and we were dissecting amphibians and crayfish that had been embalmed in formaldehyde. Mistake to take the biology class that summer and a swim class as my fingers/hands were a schribbled mess after I got out of the pool. I did learn how to swim and learned to love the water.

In the mid ‘80s, I joined a YWCA in downtown San Francisco and swam a lot. I’d get up first thing in the morning from my Inner Sunset 9^th & Judah abode and take a bus and then walk up the hill to the YWCA on Sutter St. It was a women’s building and catered to women athletes and also had offices and a hotel. It was at this time that women were attempting to join the San Francisco Firefighters and found a lot of obstacles in getting hired. So we all swam in the pool with the pool filters installed wrong but who knew. There were a lot of things wrong with that YWCA building on Sutter St.

So, fast forward to 2007. I’ll be 57 later this year and not that I’m having a late mid-life crisis (well maybe I am) I decided I’d better get in shape. I have been spinning at the gym and most recently I graduated from Yoga Teacher Training and am now a certified Yoga Instructor. Hooray! It all uphill from here on out.

For the past two years I also join the yogis and yoginis at 4:30 a.m. and get a little yoga action and meditation before I go swimming.