A decade and more ago when I was a serious amateur runner and triathlete, I got into yoga because I wasn’t very disciplined about stretching and flexibility. Some weeks when I logged crazy miles, I felt stiff and achy all the time.

A friend recommended a yoga class he attended, and I started going too. The first thing I noticed was that the poses made me feel really good, like a luxuriating cat stretching out my muscles.

So I kept it up, and was soon doing yoga on my own without classes. I don’t know objectively if yoga helped my achiness on heavy training weeks, but I thought I felt better at least.

When I told my very religious dad about it, and that it was helping my running, which is something he was interested in, he had a shocked reaction — he asked me when I had started practicing Hinduism.

His church was in something of a panic over yoga. It all seemed over overwrought to me.

And incidentally, not connected to yoga at all, I sometimes practiced an Eastern form of meditation. I did it for relaxation, enjoyment, and mental health benefits. I wasn’t religious before I started that meditation, and it didn’t make me religious.

I think a lot of people have uninformed ideas about what yoga and meditation are. I’m glad to see Alabama taking steps in the right direction.

Namaste.