When I started practicing yoga a few years ago, I never imagined one of the hardest things I’d have to learn was how to lie still.
A little background: About three years ago, a friend managed to sweet talk a local upscale gym into turning her free 6-month pass (won through her amazing marathon running feats) into two 3-month passes for each of us. I have her to thank for helping me start this journey.
We set out the first night to a yoga class. I took a deep breath and hoped I’d be able to keep up to this superb athlete, because, after all, it was just yoga. How hard could it be?
Well, what we stumbled into was an ashtanga yoga class. This, as it turned out, was a lot harder than I ever imagined yoga could be. Doing some research later, I kept turning up phrases like “ashtanga is an athletic yoga practice and is not for beginners” and “this practice is very physically demanding because of the constant movement from one pose to the next.”
Oops.
As it turned out, my friend hated it, but I had fallen in love. The challenge was exhilarating and I’m naturally flexible, which helped. It just felt right.
Three months passed quickly and I moved on from that upscale – and incredibly expensive – gym and found a teacher who practices in a local rec centre. His class is exactly the right mix for me. He’s always reminding us that you never “get there” and that I need to stop over-thinking things — that yoga is a journey and not a destination. That’s tough for my ego to swallow some nights, but other nights, when everything lines up just right, it can be magic.
So back to lying down. If you’re not familiar with it, the last 10 minutes or so of an ashtanga yoga class (and other variations, I’m sure) are spent in savasana – the pose of total relaxation. It`s often called the most important part of yoga practice and it’s not easy! I’ve learned I carry all my tension in my shoulders, and on too many evenings, when my teacher comes around to massage our shoulders (really, it’s not the only reason I go!) he has to pry them out of my ears. But even harder than relaxing my shoulders is relaxing my mind. Night after night in class, I have to drag my mind away from chattering about what that day’s little victory, what I still have to work on, my grocery list, the unfinished report on my desk at work … you name it, my mind has wandered there. But I persevere, pulling my thoughts back and trying to focus.
I’m still waiting for the day when I am focused more often than I’m not. But it’s a journey, right? And I’m excited to see where it takes me next.
What journey are you on?
