Yoga hurts more than running

Friday Flow #36: This week's essay included!

Hey, friend.

How was your week?

Mine came with a lot of physical aches from doing…yoga.

It’s my most interesting finding recently. I run three times a week and my body shrugs it off. Sure, it used to ache initially for a bit, but that really settled after awhile, and for a couple years now, running hasn’t been a cause of aches. But a 20-minute yoga session over the weekend and I’ve been aching all week. And especially in my legs, which don’t ache from running in the least!

I understand why this is happening, of course. It just means the yoga is stretching a bunch of muscles that the running hadn’t even been touching. Running mainly is a function of the large muscles of your legs, whereas yoga involves all kinds of other, smaller muscles. And the amount of achiness I’ve felt would imply that those muscles haven’t been that active—if at all—in a long time.

But that’s a parable for life in general, isn’t it? Different types of activities strengthen different aspects of our selves, our lives—even when the activities are in the same areas of our lives. No matter what you’re good at, you can unlock new muscles by approaching it from a different angle.

What will you apply that to?

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POPping Lewis

Speaking of stretching new muscles, I did just that with my essay this week. It was inspired by an exercise from the ongoing Write of Passage course that I’ve never done in the four times I’ve taken the course: the curation exercise. You’re supposed to curate the work of someone you admire, whether that’s a writer or YouTuber or whoever.

Of course I chose CS Lewis. But it was a hard essay to write, so I’d really like to know what you think of it.

Here’s the opening:

One of the biggest compliments anyone has ever paid me was to say my writing reminded them of CS Lewis. I've written before about he's influenced me more than any other single writer, and I'd like to explore why through one of his most insightful essays.

It’s titled The Inner Ring and I first read it when I was 20. It came as part of a collection of essays which in turn came in a collection of books I got as a birthday present from my aunt who lived in the US.

I’d first read Lewis a few years earlier and he’d been part of my journey to an adult faith. For my big 2-0 I wanted to delve into more of his work, and Amazon wasn’t delivering to Nigeria at the time. It was those books that confirmed Lewis’ position, as the writer who has most influenced me.

You can read the rest of the essay here: How CS Lewis wrote POP

Moon and stars

Still speaking of things that wake up when something else goes to rest:

The stars shine brightest when the moon is gone.

In your dark of night, may you find the heart to lift your eyes and see the stars.

Talk soon,

Doc Ayomide

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