Later, I was grateful for those seminal years of skating, for the ease I still have on the ice, for the discipline I learned working on my jumps and spins, for understanding what it’s like to feel scared and skate out on the ice anyway, and for learning to leave the sport at the end of eighth grade when I was done.
I’M NOT AN ATHLETE
By junior high, my timid kid-self turned opinionated. I didn’t want to skate anymore. It wasn’t cool. Cool kids played soccer or soft-ball. I silently resented my mom for choosing sports for us—we also took ballet—with zero social cachet. I wished she had put me in grittier ones with practical skills, ones that would be social capital in high school.
It felt too late to learn soccer or other team sports, but as I looked ahead to high school, I thought I might be able to catch up with tennis. Our girls’ varsity team had recently won the state competition for large high schools. I had watched the players, admiring their strength on the court, their physicality as they ran after shots and fired hard returns. I wanted to be part of it all. I hoped playing on a high-level team would help me get into college.
My friend Sue had started playing, so I asked my mom to sign me up for tennis lessons at our local raquet club, with the goal of making the freshman tennis team. Sue and I entered tournaments in the summer to get ready to play competitively, and I managed to win a game. I left with a T-shirt and a twinge of pride from the proof that I was better than one other player.
The day of the freshman team tryouts, I clung to Sue’s side. I didn’t know how I would stack up. We lined up against the fence, watching as, one by one, girls went to the baseline and hit ground strokes with the coach.
“Next!” I felt sick, my stomach bottoming out, just like at an ice skating competition.
On the court, I told myself to move my feet, to watch the ball—all of my tennis coach’s instructions. I felt crushed when I hit the ball into the net or out of bounds. I worried my serves wouldn’t go in.
When I got word I’d made it onto the team, relief swept over me. Sue made it, too. When they handed out uniforms, I couldn’t wait to wear the white pleated skirt that signified I was a real tennis player. I had done it; I had made it onto a high school sports team.
I grew into a solid player, in part because I was dedicated, practicing outside on humid, hot weekends during the off-season. I could hit hard when pressed. By my junior year, I made it onto the vaunted varsity team.
I also fell in love with the sport. I felt strong on the green-and-blue courts with white lines, hitting deep forehands into the precise corner I intended or returning a serve with a fiery backhand, sending opponents scrambling around the court. I felt part of something, hanging out on the bus with my friends and cheering on my teammates during long tournament weekends. I felt cool, wearing the bulky red team sweatpants, then heading out to the court to warm up.
I didn’t dare call myself an athlete, however. In my mind, the real athletes ran up and down the basketball court, scored on the field hockey team, or blasted down the track in sprint relays. They owned the hallways with their long, lanky strides. I was a not-so-sporty, school-focused Chinese-American girl, who also played tennis.
“I’m not an athlete,” I whispered to myself, even when our tennis team won third place in the state competition.
I didn’t know it would be one of the most active periods of my life. Once I moved on to college, the strength I had built over years of tennis retreated. I walked a lot; dabbled in tap dance, rock climbing, kayaking, and yoga; and pushed myself into feats like a 50-mile hike. But stress and all-nighters ate away at my strength.
As an adult, any lingering athleticism disappeared into the keyboard at work, where I looked at a screen and wrote story after story at the former Anchorage Daily News. It vanished into the couch as I sighed and watched television after a long day of writing on deadline. It faded into the elliptical at the gym, where my half-hearted 20-minute sessions were dedicated to preventing additional post-college weight gain.
I will give myself credit for the desire to move. I loved hiking, and I chose jobs near the mountains. I lived in Anchorage for a few years, hiking several times a week in the summer and skate skiing two to three times a week during cold, dark winters to keep my energy and spirits up. I pushed my body because I loved the rush of accomplishment at the summit of a mountain, the connection to mental peace brought on by a 360-degree view, a full day of effort rewarded with pizza and a beer.
I asked a boyfriend once if he thought I was an athlete.
“Not really,” he said, shrugging. “Athletic, maybe, but not an athlete.”
The comment stung, but he was saying something I already felt inside.
At that time, I worked out primarily to control my weight. I hoped hiking regularly or skiing would drop the fluffy extra pounds that had accumulated after college. Weight loss was the only goal that kept me going to the gym during the spring and fall, transition seasons when I waited until it was time for my favorite outdoor activities again.
LEARNING FROM YOGA
Weight loss was also my underlying driver to do yoga. When I moved to Seattle to work for The Seattle Times, I needed a consistent way to move that didn’t include the humdrum gym or the traffic battle to hike.
The first time I took a power yoga class, I found my answer.
Back then, the idea of being strong the way I’d felt in high school seemed distant and impossible to rebuild. At 27, I didn’t think I could ever reach the strength I once felt on the tennis court, not when my arms wobbled holding a side plank. I struggled when my legs burned in a warrior. I despised the wheel, a deep backbend.
But with steady practice, I lost a few pounds, which motivated me. I went three times a week and was sore every day in between. I limped around, feeling my quads, hamstrings, and glutes screaming at me from new body awareness and being pushed after years of weakness. I wanted to get stronger; I just hadn’t realized the road to strength had to be walked with trembling legs.
I also started to absorb what my yoga teachers said about judging my body and myself. I realized I had hated my soft, rounded belly my entire life. In class, I bemoaned my lack of flexibility in a forward fold. I envied my teachers’ toned arms and wondered if my arms would ever look like theirs.
For the first time, I saw how hard I was on myself, every day.
In time, my legs quivered less. I could stay upright during balancing poses. I felt comfortable doing handstand hops, even if I couldn’t hold a handstand in the middle of the room. I loved workshops where I learned new poses.
I also was shifting out of the harsh conversations I regularly had with myself. I would start class stressed about my latest story at the newspaper—what I had written or what I’d potentially messed up. I would leave class feeling peaceful, less critical about what had happened that day at work.
Other lessons settled in as I pushed myself into one more wheel or a new pose. Every time I did a pose I didn’t want to, just like the first time I’d skated onto the ice to compete as an eight-year-old, my brain was being rewired. Even if a pose looked intimidating or I was tired, I learned to try it anyway.
My new perspective was simple—I can do more than I think I can.
If you asked my friends, people would say I already lived this way. I moved to China to teach English right after I graduated from college. I lived in Alaska for almost four years, braving frigid, dark winters. I covered Congress at 26 years old. At 27 I got a job at The Seattle Times, my biggest goal yet.
Then, I left a job in the only industry I had ever known—journalism—to teach yoga. Before I gave notice, I sometimes