This is my yoga life
Although there's so much yoga available these days, many people still think it's just stretching and creating strange shapes with the body, or a gentle form of exercise.
In a way, this is true - but it's so much more...
I like to think of each yoga class or practice as an adventure or a journey! An immersive simulation of life:
First we arrive on the mat; our world for the next 60 minutes. We settle and warm up - connecting the body, mind and breath. Then we do a bunch of poses and movements - some we like and others we'd rather avoid, some we’re good at and others we find difficult.
Along the way we observe and meet parts of ourselves that are familiar and other parts that are new, parts that we like and others we want to change. We flip upside down and inside out, left to right and right around.
We begin to see our habits and reactions in different situations.
The yoga journey is about self observation and reflection, continuous growth and learning.
After all that work, we wind down - we reflect, rest, breathe and ultimately we surrender...
We experience ups and downs, joy and pain - right there on the mat - a mini-lifetime of experiences rolled into one beautiful little hour!
Yoga is a wonderful opportunity to learn and practice new and challenging things, to test and push our physical and mental boundaries and discover what we're really capable of.
We develop an understanding and awareness that is based on the reality of our experience on the mat and not on our beliefs, fears or what others have told us!
And if that’s not fantastic enough, we can take the lessons and discoveries we have made off the mat and into real life, to help enrich and transform ourselves and the whole world around us!
Class by class, pose by pose and breath by breath, we begin to create a little more space and clarity in ourselves - and our lives.
Join me on the mat, and explore a whole new world every time...
"Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self."
- The Bhagavad Gita
