For the past ten years or so, I have practiced yoga, with the emphasis on the word “practice”. I started taking classes at a wonderful studio in the Mission District of San Francisco, where I am pretty sure I was the only woman in any class without a “tramp stamp” emblazoned across the skin just above my butt. If you ever lifted your head during downward facing dog, you were greeted by a sea of ink from every tattoo artist in the greater Bay Area. The teachers were great, but as I struggled through the poses and tried to keep up with the other yogis and yoginis who were half my age, I couldn’t help but feel like I was just an alien from an older, non-tattooed, less-bendy planet.

When I started dating my hubby about eight years ago, he lived in a bedroom community about 45 miles from where I lived in San Francisco, and I spent weekends at his place, which we dubbed “the country home”. Despite being born in LA and being pretty much half woman and half car, I couldn’t bring myself to make a 90 mile round-trip drive into SF for a yoga class, so I scoured the internet for something closer.

I hit yoga gold on the first time out, when I found a multi-level class in Walnut Creek. The teacher was a guy about my age who had a great sense of humor and was even less bendy than I was. His philosophy is that every pose can be done on a mild, medium or “spicy” basis, and he cracked jokes about the poses, himself, and the general human condition throughout the class. Not a tattoo in sight, maybe because the other yoga practicioners were also in my age range, or maybe because their yoga pants went up to their waists and their yoga tops didn’t end at their belly-button piercings. One way or another, I knew I’d found my tribe.

Years later my husband and I have moved to Oakland, but I still make a trip out to the same studio for this class every Saturday morning, rain or shine. The yoga is good for my body, and the comraderie of the regulars, who all know each other by name, and occasionally go out for coffee together after class, is good for the soul. We may not be as flexible as your average yoga class, and we may have more silver in our hair than ink on our bodies, but the experience of finding a community of like-minded people you can “practice” with is worth its weight in gold.