The Many Faces of Yoga

I love to bend. It is my art. It is the best way I know of expressing the things inside of me that feel beautiful and strong. Through bending I've slowly become a better person, but it was really nothing to do with being flexible, it was everything to do with the journey it took me on. The more flexible I have become, the more I realise how little it has to do with Yoga. The journey to a very flexible body (for many of us) can be a massive mountain to climb.  It is simply impractical, given the demands of everyday life. The time and energy you would need to spend on such an epic expedition, may simply not be there. I understand the truth of this because I've worked so hard to get where I am, and I know it is not trivial and asks you make sacrifices which may mean making (paradoxically) very selfish choices.

I worry sometimes that as I become ever more advanced in my practice, I separate myself more and more from the reality of others. As I climb ever higher up the mountain, more people will be inclined to say "wow" and less people will be inclined to follow, or even believe they can.

But that is the key, when you make Yoga your own, you are not following anyone except yourself. There are so many ways to do Yoga that have no direct relationship to your physicality. It is not a requirement of Yoga to hold a religious view of the world, but it would probably help if you believed that your existence might be more than just a purely physical manifestation. I'm an agnostic so I in order to honour this position I hold about the nature of our existence I used the word "might". The ability to think and feel is provided to us via a physical vehicle, but that does not mean these things themselves are physical. When you listen to a beautiful peace of music do you credit your ears and brain for this feeling?!? Or was that just a pathway to your "consciousness" which then made a determination about what you are experiencing in the physical world? I do not believe your experience of "beauty" was made by anything physical, it was made in a place were no physical thing can go. My personal (and I stress the word personal) belief is that the human spirit (aka our pure consciousness) is innately attached to our physical vehicle and is created at the time of our inception. I therefore believe it will die at the time of it's passing. This belief brings me no fear, it only makes me realise how truly precious and fleeting the miracle of my own life is, and that of others. To tell the truth, I love to sleep, so I'm looking forward to the ultimate sleep that can truly escape time and space. There are many other views, I celebrate them all, but the purpose of this digression is to understand that if we believe the essence of our existence is non physical then Yoga itself, at the very essence, must be a non physical practice as well.

Want to do Yoga but are very inflexible? Find a class that caters to the needs of an inflexible body. There are many teachers out there these days who offer classes that do not require significant ranges of motion, and taking it a step further, do not treat Asana practice as a particularly significant part of the Yogic journey. There are teachers and guides who focus more on breath; meditation; philosophy; karma; music; chant; dance and community. While I spend a lot of time bending, I practice yoga more when I choose to smile back at the stranger who smiled at me. I practice Yoga more when I choose to forgive myself.  I practice Yoga more when I can love myself enough that the rejection or judgement of others cannot not defeat me. I practice Yoga more when I accept that a door has closed.  I practice Yoga more when I walk through the new doors that open.

I am a Vinyasa flow teacher and I teach a physical path that travels to a non physical place. I follow the principles of non-interference and non judgement. I believe that the true teacher resides within each of us. I do not believe in "the" way, only in "a" way, and that even within the path I have chosen, the branches are many, and I invite my students to develop their consciousness to a level where they can explore them safely and with joy.

Lastly, I practice Yoga more when I write a piece like this, with the simple intent of helping people understand that while I'm climbing the daunting mountain of flexibility, I might one day finally reach the top to find you already there smiling back at me. Nothing could make me happier.