round and round we go

Yoga is a personalized, individual practice.  The physical practice anyway, but there is a reason we get together in groups to practice.  It’s easier to know that we are all connected when there’s a bunch of other people around you having the same experience. It helps it stick more.  Helps you remember more.  A home practice is a beautiful thing, and finding a deep state of meditation can be a bit easier on your own.   But every one of the profound yoga connection experiences I’ve had took place in a group class.  Sometimes workshops or conferences, sometimes a regular daily class in a studio, sometimes even a random yoga class in a random office.  All different kinds of music, all different kinds of instructors, different styles of yoga, hot, cold, carpet, cork, florescent, candle light.  The only common factor to all of these moments was the group practice.  Now, I like to be fun,  and silly even sometimes,  and I like to play rock music and dance, so I like to do these things while I’m practicing yoga,  but that doesn’t mean I’m not serious.  I don’t think these things preclude meditation, I think they challenge you to go deeper.   I want more people to understand the practice I do.  I’m trying to think how long it took me to “get it” and I really have no idea, but I do know it was after I started taking group classes.  I practiced yoga for about a year maybe all on my own, with books and videos.  I still remember the sensation of my shoulders being aligned properly in down dog for the first time.   Crackling fire between my scapula, but also like a magic beam was moving down my spine and out the crown of my head. Oh! I thought, this is yoga.  I get it now.  It wasn’t just the physical sensation- there are reasons for alignment in yoga beyond hot abs and yoga bunz.  There’s a kind of magic that happens in your practice when everything is going right.  and you don’t have to have perfect alignment or be able to do all the crazy poses to experience it.  we walk a constant line in our practice, the wanting to do the advanced variations vs. staying in the breath and honoring your meditation line.  I find that magic balance every so often.   But then somehow I forget again for a while, go back to pushing and straining and worrying all about the physical aspect of practice, and then another eureka moment happens and I remember for a while, and on and on like this, round and round we go.  So friends, don't feel that you have to do a certain kind of yoga, or practice at a certain time, or with a certain teacher,  just practice.  whenever the mood strikes.  at home, in a class, at the office.  who cares if the lighting is not quite right, or if you don;t like the music,  just be in your breath. move. and, every once in a while at least, smile.  you are blessed.