My Love/Hate Relationship with Yoga Poses
I have a love / hate relationship with the physical practice of yoga.
When I started practicing yoga 25 years ago, I fell in love with the way powerful, graceful movements could weave with the breath of the body to honor the Divine.
That’s when I knew I wanted to teach yoga!
But when I started teacher training, I found myself practicing these challenging “pinnacle poses” of yoga (the ones that made you a so-called “master” of the practice) - and ending practice feeling worse than before.
Headstand was my greatest challenge!
I would wake up every morning, drag my mat to the wall, and attempt this pose - most of the time, to no avail.
But even after I “mastered” this pose, it never felt right in my body.
I ignored that, because I thought self-mastery was necessary to become the best yoga teacher possible.
Now, I know and teach otherwise! Because one of the main “commandments” of yoga is AHIMSA.
Ahimsa is the practice of living every moment with love and reverence for all things.
That’s a fairly easy practice for me as a teacher, with my students - but it’s always been more challenging (and often ignored) in my own practice.
The good news is, I’ve now learned to listen to my own body, to soften into my own practice v push through it.
And now when I step off the mat, I feel fulfilled by my practice, invigorated with new energy, and balanced.
Here’s the lesson: Yoga is so much more than mastering an individual pose.
It’s actually about realizing deep reverence and respect for the bodies we inhabit, the ones that bring us to the mat (whether we can do headstand or not!)