Yoga instructor Lydia Ho (何茜芸) has made a name for herself by taking a new approach to her discipline: practicing yoga on mountain peaks.
Ho, who has climbed 100 peaks over the past eight years, said that the practice has become a routine part of her life, adding that she found herself in a state of peaceful tranquility as she reached her 100th summit on April 7.
Ho said she started her 100-peak challenge in 2011, when she turned 40, as a way to deal with depression.
Photo courtesy of Lydia Ho
She said that she had been practicing yoga for eight years at the time, and that in the beginning, she found practicing yoga at high altitudes physically demanding.
However, she refused to give up and motivated herself by doing a dance or some other move after reaching a certain altitude, Ho said.
Dancing at high altitudes, where the air is thinner, is difficult, but the added challenge increased the value of the experience, she said.
“With every goal that I accomplished, the joy I felt in my heart helped me overcome the obstacles in my life. Accumulating these experiences made me stronger,” she said.
People were drawn to the idea of combining yoga with climbing, and media reports about her progress attracted the attention of climbing enthusiasts, Ho said.
However, in addition to the positive attention that she received, some people bullied her online, causing her at one point to give up on her goal of climbing 100 peaks, she said.
Dealing with the negative online attention, as well as a traffic accident in 2014, meant that she did not do any climbing that year, Ho said.
“I had to step outside of the cage that my fear had trapped me in so that I could distance myself from the pain,” she added.
Ho attended a yoga research conference in Nepal during her year off from climbing.
The conference, held at the Everest base camp, restored her energy and confidence to face online criticism, she said.
Looking at pictures of herself performing yoga on the mountains reminds her of the hard work that she put into practicing yoga and climbing mountains, as well as intense moments when fellow climbers saved her from falls, she said.
Ho recalled a precarious climb with other climbers on Nantou’s Malijiananshan (馬利加南山), where the group faced intense cold and sudden rain.
The one-hour climb to the first peak drained her energy, and it was the first time that she was unable to dance after reaching a summit, Ho said.
She said a veteran climber once told her: “There is no place you cannot reach. If you have the will, you will make it.”
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