YOGA PRACTICE

I know we’ve talked about the word ‘Yoga’ before and if you’ve been to one of my classes you would have heard me sharing the meaning ‘union’ or ‘connection’. But why do we say ‘Practice’? Turns out according to the online dictionary that it means ‘the actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method, as opposed to theories relating to it’. So, what is Yoga? It’s not a union of thinking but a union of doing!

My approach to Yoga has transformed significantly over the last three years. In the beginning I went to a few classes and did whatever the teacher told me. The thing that attracted me to continue to go to classes was the way that I felt and so I started a personal practice at home as well as going to classes. My mind always directed these personal sessions. I thought I had to do a warm up, some sun salutations, move to standing poses, then sitting poses, an inversion of some sort and then savasan. Turns out this was not a Yoga Practice as it wasn’t a doing but rather a thinking!

Now days my only goal is to get myself to the mat. Once I am there I check in with my body and feel how the body wants to move. It helps to do a few things to drop into the body like some neck rotations and shoulder rolls but by then I’m tuned in and the doing becomes organic. Maybe the way I move looks like the traditional idea of yoga or maybe people would label it stretching or dance or any number of other things. It doesn’t matter as I’m ‘doing connection’ and that’s what Yoga is really about.

I still like to go to classes because I can experience new things but when I go it’s up to me to tune in and experience ‘doing connection’ in the space that someone else is holding.

What’s the goal of your Yoga Practice?