“That isn’t Yoga!”
Have you heard that before? Have you said that before?
What is yoga?
In its traditional translation, yoga means ‘to yoke’. A connection with the divine, a connection with oneself. In modern days I take that translation as awareness, mindfulness. I will speak of yoga as its physical practice (asana) rather than the whole way of life dedicated to it. Yoga, mindful movement, connection with body and breath. A sense of curiosity for the patterning developed in the way you move, breath or hold yourself. A habit of patterning in the mind.
Often when we try something new outside of our ‘normal’ scope in yoga, we can find our minds going to this place of ‘well that’s not yoga’, could we be wrong? Did you shine the light of awareness in the class? Did you learn something new? Were you able to move mindfully? These are all great questions to ask yourself, if you find your mind asking if it’s even really yoga you’re doing. Even if it’s something from a new teacher that you haven’t done before. Are you able to find a level of self-enquiry or exploration, then yes, you probably are doing yoga.
When we get comfortable with our practice on the mat, we can find ourselves doing exactly that. Being comfortable, which is the place that inhibits growth. We don’t have to be aiming for a crazy advanced asana to be working on improvement of understanding. Looking for something new can be a great way to enquire, it doesn’t need to be anything crazy. We don’t even have to go for a new style of yoga or even a new posture. We could simply be exploring alignment in a pose, a discrepancy between left and right side. Learning about the imbalances in the body is a great way to start. We are all very wonky creatures! The body and mind develop patterns or habits in the way we move. Your brain is always trying to keep you safe and the ‘safe’ way of moving is always the way you have moved before. It’s our jobs as conscious yogis and conscious people to enquire and learn about these patterns. Are they still serving you and the way you move? Are they still efficient?
Most of us have lots of learned patterns from when we first started our yoga practice, this is a good thing! That’s how we know to go into warrior 2 when the teacher calls the pose, it’s USEFUL. It is also something that needs updating, when we first begin we learn so much so quickly (some quicker than others 😉 ) that we might not be able to get all the information we need to make the pattern (position of body in pose for example). So these things need to be checked, sometimes frequently, as it’s much easier to learn something than un-learn.
So, in conclusion, try something new. Move slowly, be curious. And most of all, try and keep your mind open.
