HUMANS OF VITAL BEAT

Hello I’m Gill, Im a business owner, jeweller, and artist, and I also go by Gill The scottish terrier - I’m a standup comedian. Strangely enough I took up yoga the same time as I took up standup comedy. They’re really polar opposites - one is highly stress-inducing, bad for me, bad for neurosis and anxiety - the other is just the opposite of all that! When I took up comedy, I found that I was very stressed because it's a stupid stressful hobby and I took up yoga because I thought it might help take away some of the pressure and anxiety.

I’ve shirked the concept of anything spiritual or yoga-esque for 53 years because I was always very high-paced. I ran, played tennis, and even boxed competitively, and I never quite GOT the slowing down concept. But I was being forced to... by my knees.

My surgeon said to me if you don’t stop running, eventually you won’t be able to walk, and I suppose it was such a shock to me and really went into grief about it. I never thought I’d get any level of fitness back again. So I was kind of forced into yoga through this narrow window of opportunity to stay moving.

I saw the adverts for Vital Beat, and I like music and I thought I’d be bored by yoga unless it had music so I came along to try. I found everyone super friendly, and it wasn’t as twatty as I thought it would be! Even some of the really spiritual stuff, even Amanda’s classes I really love, I find myself being quite moved by it and find that quite shocking actually! I never thought I’d be moved by this, that my concrete heart could be cracked! And then you moved locations and I thought “oh I just got used to that!” But this space is even nicer.

I think it's a nice balance here, there’s lots of class variety and it’s inexpensive, and it’s close to my house! My favourite poses are corpse (savasana) and waterfall, they’re pretty close to the same thing!

Honestly, it helped me reclaim a modicum of the pride I used to have in my body, prior to stuffing up my knees and being immobile for quite some time. And even though I struggle through some of the poses with my knees, I can always adapt. I can’t do everything, but you don’t have to do it all, to get the most out of yoga. It’s kinder for my body, and it’s good for a middle-aged body. I think it's been great for me, and I think it's great for women of my age because it's kind, gentle, and it will have a greater effect. It's taken away flabbiness in parts of me that other things didn’t really do, especially the upper arm stuff. Those endless chaturangas, which I hated but now I see it's amazing how you can evolve and take years off your body.

This balances out my very hectic life… if you have a stressful life you should do yoga, if you’re stiff you should do yoga, you know if you bloody BREATHE… you should do yoga.

And if you do standup comedy you ABSOLUTELY SHOULD do yoga.

#humansofVitalBeat #hovb