As a yoga teacher, I try to convey that one of the primary principals of yoga is to learn to listen to one's body. I can't help to wonder, though, if my voice is lost in the media coverage and noise that surrounds yoga in this country. We see these images of people performing advanced poses and read the many articles proclaiming the health benefits yoga has to offer, so we conclude that all these poses must be good for us and we must achieve them. We read about the latest trends in Hot Yoga, Power Yoga, Ashtanga Yoga and we see people in headstands on mountain sides and feel this must be what yoga is all about - sweating and being strong and sleek. How many of us can do a headstand on a mountain? More importantly, how many of us want to?
Yoga is not about what we look like when we practice. Yoga is not about practicing on a visually striking mountainside or on a beach or surrounded by beautiful people. Yoga is about turning our senses inward to be surrounded by the great vastness and beauty of our own soul - that which lies within.
As a nurse, I see patients in clinic. I met a patient a while back whose thigh muscle was constantly twitching and contracting while she sat on the exam table. She was a fit lady, and started laughing when she pointed out this phenomenon. She stated that she had recently started attending advanced yoga classes, and that ever since she started taking classes her thigh was behaving this way. I asked her about how she is cooled down following class - if the instructor guides her to stretch out and allow the body to restore itself at the end of class. She was unsure of the meaning of my question and replied that a certain number of poses are completed in a preset format during each class. We ended the conversation. A twitching thigh muscle is certainly a far cry from broken bones, but it is the body's way of pointing out that something is not right.
There are very credible teacher training courses which instruct teachers to follow a preset flow of asanas (postures). These asanas are arranged in a certain order to gain a specific benefit in the body. But, how do you know as a student if that specific flow of asanas is good for
your body?
Yoga is meant to be a personal journey toward health and well being. A student of yoga should take the time to consider what is bringing him to the mat today. What is her body needing in this moment? Where is he prepared physically and mentally to go right now?
The world of yoga offers many different styles to finding that union between body, mind and spirit. Every style has a unique purpose, each representing a petal on the lotus flower of yoga practice. As the bloom of each day unfolds, we must ask ourselves "Which petal defines today?"
