Style: Personal Sequence
Teacher: Self
Studio: Home Practice

I'm a liar. I'm a fraud. I'm a fake. I've been misleading you all. It's all a sham. I didn't actually do ninety days the first time around. Okay maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. Allow me to explain.

When I started my original ninety day yoga challenge back in September of 2009, I had only ever done yoga a few times. It wasn't initially a ninety day challenge. It was supposed to be a thirty day challenge. My mom is an avid yogini, and it was her idea. She challenged me. She said I couldn't, I said I could. For me it was a great excuse to exercise, but at the time, thirty days straight practicing yoga seemed like an insurmountable task. As that first month progressed however, something started to shift. I began to realize that there is something special about yoga, something mysterious that I was only beginning to scratch the surface of. I decided that thirty days wasn't enough. My mentality at the time was, each yoga practice is an hour and a half, which is ninety minutes. If I did ninety classes in a row, it would be like each class represented one minute and in effect I would be doing one massive, intergalactic yoga class. Also, the first class of the original challenge auspiciously landed on September ninth, or 09/09/09. There was just too much numerology indicating that I had to triple my thirty day challenge. It was as if life itself was gesturing me to continue. So my mother and I each extended our challenges to ninety days. When we got to the eighty-ninth class, she told me she was going for a hundred. At this point I was a complete yoga-junkie and the thought of everything coming to an end was depressing, so I decided I would go to a hundred as well. (Also, truth be told, there was no way I was going to be outdone by my mom who would live on with eternal bragging rights unto the end of time.) In the end, we did one-hundred-and-one days in a row. Coming as far as we did, we really needed to hit the triple digits. We made it. 101 Dalmatians.

After the three weeks off, I decided to repeat the challenge, only this time I would blog about it. The challenge of practicing along with writing down my experience every day has completely amplified the journey, propelling me deeper within myself at an incalculable speed. As the days and weeks added up, I thought about the finish line. How was it going to end? Should I stop at ninety? Should I go to a hundred? How will I find any closure with this project? Am I actually able to stop? These questions perplexed me behind the scenes every now and then. What to do, what to do. This time around, I wasn't too sure. I'm still not sure. Ending my experience in 4 more days seems premature. But then again, I laid out that goal and I'm almost there. Somewhere in the seventies I decided I should go past ninety, at least to 101, maaaaybe 102, just to top the last challenge. As I came closer, the idea of simply wrapping things up at 90 was just so seductive. Even though something inside me was still persuading me to continue, no one would be the wiser. On the ninety-first morning I would have nothing to write. I could just do other things, get back to having a real life again. I'd be off the hook. It's an easy way out. Just let it go.

As I sat with that conclusion, I knew I couldn't. Here I am, so close, yet I'm going to have to continue. This challenge will go on past ninety days. In effect I will have obliterated the name of my blog, leaving it with absolutely no meaning or relevance, but I will still be writing about my experience for some time to come regardless. It's something I have to do. I just don't know how long. I have a feeling the answers will come to me. They always do...