Why do you practice? Why do you practice physically? Why do you practice mentally? Why do you practice spiritually? What keeps bringing you back? How has it affected you? I practice, yoga, meditation, and tai chi for the overall well-being and dexterity balance of my body. It’s mobility. Bodily functions. It’s resilience. The physical aspects
Emptiness is a vibrant place!
I have felt this in my practice of Tai Chi and even yoga. Finding the abundance and vibrance in letting go, in softening, in emptying the body and the mind of resistance and insistence.
Yoga to me is a safe place. I feel the most safe and feel the most freedom to be me when I am on the mat and practicing. Yoga allows me to think about myself and what I need and my body needs at the time.
It was a go-with-the flow kind of day. My only plan was to meet everyone who came where they were, and meet myself there too. I didn’t know the conceptions of yoga they would come with. I didn’t know the cultural predispositions or oppositions to yoga they would bring. I only knew they had all arrived in this country, this city, with a hope for a new life, likely with untold struggles and pain along the way.
How has yoga surprised you?
I never expected that when I was looking for an exercise class I would find a community. People who have changed me for the better by simply being them. I never thought I would meet a teacher who would not only invest time in me but would also invest time in my child. I really look forward to the days that I can bring her with me to the studio and let her experience all of what yoga truly is.
I discovered my Yoga practice later in life (I was over 50 or VINTAGE as B would say). It has been a continuing journey of learning and thoughtfulness. My practice has helped me to BREATHE and try to stay calm when things upset me. I really do enjoy the sense of community that I get from the group.
Yoga with young people can be freeing and wondrous. When allowed to set their own guidelines they tend to choose kindness over cruelty, and joy over judgment. Anything become possible, even headstands!
I’m honored to be spinning around in this cosmic confusion with you all. Each beautiful, sassy, silly, brilliant, intelligent, creative, generous, nerdy, queer, unique one of you.
Studio guidelines for Covid safety include: bring your own mat, masks optional, don’t come with any cold/flu symptoms. More…
Freedom and feeling are imperfect and messy and juicy and intense and subtle. No matter whether you want to feel goofy or balancing on one limb and still, step into it with a playful, open, willing nature.
This insertion of silence is a crucial part of yoga practice. Turning off the distractions of phones, computers, music, other people’s voices …. Leaves us alone with the inner distractions and chatter. It helps isolate our attention. It helps create an honest and authentic space of practice. It makes it your own.
I’m not gonna lie. It can also drive us crazy! I notice how after a few times through I sequence I can hear my inner voice say, “cool, now you know what would make this better? Let’s play some Beyonce to the sequence next!”
Intention does not replace surrender to truth. Intention should direct us toward it. Intention also isn’t the destination. When the drive becomes the objective we get consumed in constant doing that goes nowhere.
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