I have been practicing yoga for more than two decades now. During this time, I would say, on average, I practiced at least once a week. In recent years, I've increased this to twice a week, though there might have been periods in the early years when I skipped some months. So, it's safe to say I practiced yoga at least once a week, and more recently, twice a week. Of course, yoga is not the only exercise I do. I supplement my yoga practice with other exercises, but I usually keep yoga to the weekends, trying to practice on Saturdays and Sundays. During the week, I do different kinds of exercise, mostly weight training and HIIT workouts. I try to squeeze in 2 to 3 weight training sessions and one HIIT session, which is usually a spinning or sprint class. This way, I get a nice blend of exercises throughout the week. Additionally, I try to incorporate walks here and there during the week and on weekends.

In this blog, however, I'll be focusing on yoga—how I fell in love with it, how I've stuck with it for so long, its benefits, and whether there are any drawbacks. I'll talk about the pros and cons, if any, and discuss my experiences with yoga. Before I dive into that, I’d like to go back to my earlier years and share how it all started.

Like many other high school kids, I was interested in exercise. I should mention that my high school was in Peshawar, Pakistan, which was a different environment. Our school didn't have any formal gym, so we had to improvise. At home, we created a bench for lifting weights using iron pipes. We welded those pipes together to make a stable and functional bench, and of course, we bought the weights to go along with it. We had some other equipment as well, including a bar with weights and possibly some dumbbells. I remember doing chest fly exercises, where you grab two ends of the chest fly machine and extend your arms. It had three iron bars, or coils, that would stretch as you performed the exercise. I recall doing those exercises on the second floor of our house.

Motivating myself to exercise was sometimes challenging, so for a brief period, I got a membership at a local gym within walking distance from my home. I would go there occasionally. However, when I was in 11th grade, I discovered a Taekwondo instructor who was teaching nearby. This instructor happened to be an Afghan refugee, and back in those days—more than 30 years ago, in the early 1990s—many Afghan refugees had come to Peshawar because of the Afghan war. Some of them settled there and opened businesses. One of them opened this Afghan Taekwondo school, and they were very skilled in martial arts. They also spoke Pashto, which was our language, so communication was easy. They were strong, well-built instructors, and I really enjoyed the classes.

I convinced a friend of mine to join me, and we would go together. The school wasn’t within walking distance, so we had to take public transportation. The Taekwondo classes were held on university grounds because the instructors couldn’t afford a formal gym. Our instructor was excellent, and occasionally, his teacher would visit. We were always excited when the teacher’s teacher came because he had a certain charisma. He was a higher belt and very skilled. Once a month, they held belt tests, and I remember one day when the teacher’s teacher had a fight with someone. As soon as the fight began, he quickly kicked his opponent in the face, winning the match in seconds. He was exceptionally good.

Those were the days I continued Taekwondo for a while, but eventually, the logistics didn’t work out, so I had to discontinue it. However, it sparked my interest and fascination with martial arts. Fast forward, when I moved to the United States during my school years, I would occasionally go to the gym, but nothing formal. I didn't enroll in any karate or Taekwondo classes. Then, I got a job in Chicago, and by the 2000s, I found myself curious about getting back into Taekwondo. After 10 years, I discovered a Taekwondo school in Chicago and decided to enroll again.

While I found it fascinating to some extent, things were very different now. The training often involved scenarios like defending yourself in a bar fight, which I found less relevant to my life. I wondered why I would ever be in a bar in the middle of a fight. It didn’t resonate with me, so I decided to explore other options.

One day, while walking through my neighborhood, I noticed a Tai Chi studio. I wasn't familiar with Tai Chi, but my curiosity led me to walk in, talk to the instructor, and enroll in classes. I soon discovered that the instructor was a 5th-degree black belt and a grandmaster in Tai Chi—a very interesting person.

I quickly fell in love with Tai Chi. It’s a slower form of martial arts, with a different pace and style. We practiced various exercises, moving our hands in slow motion, performing different katas that we had to remember, and occasionally engaging in sprawling and light sparring. I enjoyed it thoroughly and continued for some time.

In 2004, I moved from Chicago to Tampa, Florida. Unfortunately, I no longer had access to the grandmaster or a Tai Chi instructor, so I had to explore other fitness options. I enrolled in a local gym where they offered yoga classes. I found some similarities between yoga and Tai Chi—both were slow-paced, involved a lot of stretching, flexibility, and had a mental aspect in addition to the physical. So I decided to give yoga a try.

This marked the beginning of my yoga journey. I didn’t join a formal yoga studio; instead, I attended yoga classes offered at the gym. After weeks of regular exercise, even my trainers started recommending yoga to help with stretching and overall flexibility.

I’ve been practicing yoga for several years now. At my current wellness center, they have a dedicated yoga studio that can be converted into a hot yoga studio, with the temperature cranked up to 98 degrees. For the past few years, I’ve been exclusively attending hot yoga classes. I’ve become quite addicted to it. While regular yoga is good too, I prefer hot yoga. The heat warms up your body, making it easier to stretch, and you sweat more, which is great for detoxification. I’ve read that sweating is one of the most effective ways to eliminate toxins from the body—5 to 7 times more effective than through urination.

The heat also opens up your skin pores, leaving you feeling rejuvenated. I’ve experimented with different class durations, from 30 minutes to 90 minutes. Once you get used to it, 30 minutes doesn’t feel like enough time. I find that the longer classes allow for a more complete experience—starting with stretching, moving through various poses, and winding down in the last 10-15 minutes.

It’s important to realize that yoga isn’t just a physical exercise; it’s half physical and half mental. In the beginning, you might think it’s all physical—I certainly did. I initially thought of it as just a stretching exercise. But it’s much more than that. There’s a significant mental aspect to yoga where you focus on being present, trying to quiet your thoughts, and viewing your yoga mat as your entire world, blocking out everything else for those ninety minutes. Mentally, yoga can be a great exercise for improving focus, concentration, and mindfulness—especially in today’s world, where constant distractions can easily pull our attention away. Yoga helps bring your focus back to the mat, grounding you in the present moment. Of course, your mind will wander, but the practice teaches you to bring it back to the mat repeatedly.

As for the physical side of yoga, my favorite poses are those that involve twisting from one direction to another. Like many professionals, my job requires sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day, which is far from healthy. I try to mitigate this with a standing desk, alternating between sitting and standing, but it’s still not ideal. Yoga helps a lot with this. The twisting poses in yoga are movements you rarely make in your daily life, and they are crucial for maintaining flexibility and spinal health.

When it comes to overall health, strength and stamina are important, but so are flexibility and balance. I get my strength from weight training, my stamina from cardio exercises, and yoga provides me with balance and flexibility. These aspects are vital; for example, how you bend and pick something up from the ground can reveal a lot about your flexibility. Balance is also critical—can you balance easily on one leg, or even on two legs with your eyes closed? These abilities are essential to work on so that later in life, maintaining balance and flexibility doesn’t become a challenge.

Yoga fulfills two of these key components—balance and flexibility. After working on strength and stamina through other exercises, yoga complements and completes the picture. After practicing yoga for more than two decades, it has become a habit, something I look forward to. It’s just a routine now. There’s no question about it—I wake up on weekends, go to the gym, and take my yoga classes. Even when I’m traveling, I check if the hotel offers yoga classes, especially at resorts. If they do, I join; if not, I do other exercises. During COVID, I continued yoga by following an instructor online, sometimes in groups with friends, doing it together via video calls. Some people prefer to follow YouTube videos for yoga, but I enjoy being in the studio environment. There’s a specific temperature for hot yoga, and a familiar group of people whom I’ve seen for years, which creates a sense of connection.

And, as with anything in life, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Over time, I’ve improved my flexibility, can do handstands and headstands, and feel more comfortable with the various poses. However, one of the challenges—though not a drawback—is that you might think yoga would become easier after so many years, but it continues to present new challenges.

But it’s always challenging because your body is different each time, and our instructor continuously makes the class more interesting and more difficult. So, it’s always a challenge. Sometimes you might think to yourself, “Shouldn’t this be easy by now?” But no, it’s not. There’s always room to push yourself further, which is both good and bad. It’s good because you’re constantly challenging your body, but it can be tough because it’s never a breeze. These are some of the issues we face while practicing yoga.

One last important point is to stay hydrated, especially in hot yoga where you sweat a lot. You might need to supplement with a little bit of salt and lemon juice to replenish what you lose through sweating.

That’s all I have to say about my passion for yoga. I do have other hobbies and professions, but yoga stands out because I’ve been practicing it for more than two decades. All my friends and acquaintances know this about me, and I often share the benefits and positive aspects of yoga with them. It has become part of my identity.

I encourage everyone to give yoga a try. Many people acknowledge that yoga is good for you, but few actually try it. Over the years, a couple of my friends have joined me at the yoga studio, but most only came once and never returned. Perhaps there’s a stigma associated with yoga—that it’s not “real” exercise. Some might think, “If I’m going to exercise, I might as well do something more macho.”

I’m not saying that strength training and other forms of exercise aren’t important—they absolutely have their place. But so do flexibility and balance, which are equally essential. Both need to be incorporated into your routine.

I hope my journey through yoga has inspired some of you to at least try it once, and ideally, to supplement it with your strength training routine so that you can benefit tremendously from it.