Yoga/Life Philosophy

Hello Reader,

I have - yet, again - a late night, post yoga blog post to share with you. I'll try to keep this one brief.

This thought began to develop while I was trying to tune out the Miley Cyrus music the instructor had chosen for tonight's practice. She had some really great song choices, however, Miley was a low point. 

Anyways, I found tonight's practice somewhat disjointed and I decided to analyze why I felt that way while bouncing from ridged pose to ridged pose.

The focus was on the poses - getting to them, holding them briefly, and then on to the next. There was little discussion of how to get from one to another, why this pose is what it is, or proper alignment for safety purposes (can you tell I've taught yoga and had a supervisor who stressed the importance of safety in ones practice?) When I whittled down this unease I had with the flow of the class, it was simple; there was no attention paid to the transitions or the journey of the practice. The transitions from pose to pose in yoga is where the real work comes in, it's where you grow and deepen your yoga practice. She did not allow any of that to happen in her class. Skipping that journey is cheating yourself out of developing as a yogi and reaching your full potential.

So let's take the above paragraph and apply that to life.

I was looking specifically at my life since it is the one I'm living and can easily apply this to. The theme to my past few month has been change, I'll lump transitions into that too, and that was what struck me as missing from tonight's class. I feel quite strongly that a whole-heck-of-a-lot of personal growth, and self development has accompanied all of life's happenings. I think people need to take things slow in times of change to harness the power that transitions give us to learn. I don't see many benefits from just jumping from one thing to the next. It's like what I said above, "Skipping that journey is cheating yourself out of developing as a yogi and reaching your full potential" except replace "yogi" with "person."

In yoga, I believe the instructor is there to offer guidance in the practice specifically in allowing space for smooth transitions from one pose to another. Now, I know this is not exactly how life always works but hopefully there has been someone along the way giving each of us the resources and strength to get through transitions even if the journey is a difficult solo experience. This way you know when to breathe through a situation, muscle your way out of a challenging change, dig deeper for the inner strength you need to float through the next step, or simply surrender to things you can't control. I think these are all lessons worth carrying off the yoga mat.

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So much for being brief, huh? Oh , well.  Sorry!

Thanks for reading!

- M