What Happened When A 64-Year-Old Guy Tried Naked Yoga For The First Time.

This post was generously submitted by Henry, one of our amazing patrons.

I'm going to tell you something that might get me laughed out of every room I’ve ever occupied. I do nude yoga. Specifically, I do Audriasana ‘s nude workouts, and it changed my entire life.

Audri and Asana start slow from the comfort of your home In Bed Podcast

Let me back up. I was married for thirty-seven years.

That marriage ended the way a lot of them do: with a long, slow suffocation. We both stopped talking, or trying. She stopped seeing me as I did her. And, because I'm a man of a certain generation, I just absorbed it all silently and drank whiskey on the deck at night, thinking that's what strength looked like.

When it ended, I was totally lost. I had no idea who I was without her. I was 63. I looked in the mirror and saw an old, soft stranger. A man who had spent nearly four decades keeping everything in.

So I did what a lot of divorced men do. I took up a new hobby, photography. I bought a camera with a long lens so heavy I could barely hold it for more than 5 minutes, and I started photographing animals and landscapes. It gave me an excuse to get out of the house, to look at something besides the space where someone used to sit.

Photography was safe. You could be lonely behind a camera. You could hide.

But then I joined Instagram and came across an artist, michelle_yogogirls AKA Asana. She brought an athletic quality to her nude art. The kind where you see strong bodies that look real, in motion, and alive. But her work is also creative and wit-filled. I remember looking at those images and feeling something move in my chest that I hadn't felt in years. It wasn't just an attraction; she gave me a sense of permission. Permission to exist, not as a set of social requirements, but as a body that moved through space and had its own intelligence.

Michelle invited me to check out Audriasana online. I almost didn't, I felt like the idea of me getting nude and moving my body alone in my house even felt strange. I couldn’t even picture it, but I logged on anyway in support of her art.

Asana teaching core in Glute and Core Ball Workout

I’m so glad I made the investment in myself.

Strangely, I instantly felt completely comfortable. Audri & Asana, and the other strong and beautiful trainers, made me trust my body and made me feel truly alive. As sweat dripped off my face and my breath finally, finally got deeper, something unlocked. That something was my mind, I actually just let go and said fuck it, I’m not going to hide and try to fit into society’s rules just to feel safe. This is actually what makes me feel safe.

I felt, for the first time in years, like I wasn’t broken.

This had nothing to do with being sexual. It had everything to do with being honest. I was standing in my bedroom in front of a mirror with none of the armor I'd spent decades assembling. Just me. A sixty-four-year-old man with a soft middle, some gray chest hair, and a body that has lived a full, complicated, occasionally heartbreaking life. I had so much I wanted to share with Audri & Asana. I wanted to let them know how much they challenged me and changed my perceptions.

So, I reached out to them, and they actually responded. We discussed life and art. They’ve made space for me.

I've been doing this for eight months now. And the strange part is, the more I've let myself be vulnerable in that space, the more I've realized something that our culture doesn't really tell men. We're terrified of being soft because we think softness equals weakness. But that's backward. Softness is the bravest thing a man can do.

It takes more strength to say I don't know than to pretend I do.

It takes more strength to admit you're scared than to act like you have it all figured out. It takes more strength to show someone your actual body, with its imperfections and contradictions, than to hide behind an image of what you think you're supposed to be.

When I take photos now, I'm not hiding behind the camera anymore. I'm documenting real people (as well as some landscapes and animals). People who have made mistakes and survived them. I see myself in those images. Not as someone with a failed marriage, but as someone who is still learning how to be human.

Here’s what I want to tell every man I know, especially the ones around my age who are sitting alone, wondering what happens now.

You don't have to look a certain way. You don't have to sound a certain way. You don't have to be strong in the way you were taught strength looks. You just have to be real. You have to show up. You have to let someone see you, actually see you, not the version you've been maintaining since your father told you to stop crying.

The irony is that being vulnerable has made me feel more confident than I have in years. Not because anyone is validating my body or my choices, but because I'm finally not exhausted by keeping everything in. I sleep and breathe better (through my nose, not my mouth). And, I just exist differently.

So to every man thinking about trying something outside his comfort zone, every guy sitting on the fence about whether he's allowed to be soft, every divorced man wondering if it's too late to become someone new: it's not. You're not broken. And the openness you're afraid to show is probably the most interesting thing about you.

AND, a disclaimer, you won't be seeing me personally teaching nude yoga on AudriAsana. I'll be, from the comfort of my home, on my mat watching the lovely, expertly focused ladies.

Audri and Asana in Living Libido Workout

An note from Audri & Asana

If you would like to share your story too, please email us at asana@audriasana.com

Naked yoga just happens to be a tool that got us there. If you’ve ever felt even a little disconnected from yourself, or like you’re moving through life just slightly outside your body…We get it!

And that’s exactly why we started.

You will experience so much more with our lovely trainers on their personal accounts here:
Audri
Asana
Dani
Sasha
Rhyanna
Chiara