Why ‘doing yoga’ isn’t the point of doing yoga

I went out running last week. It was a beautiful morning and without somewhere to get up and ‘go’ for yoga I can’t help feeling a little caged and contained, resulting in a general aversion to practice or a lot of corner cutting without the appropriate level of focus.

I guess it’s just another symptom of ejecting myself from London and missing having a dedicated Mysore space. It’s been irritating me and it’s affected my practice, causing me to lose focus.

So I decided that on this particularly Wednesday morning I would take myself off for a little woodland jog. I used to be a big runner before yoga came along – every morning 6am without fail I’d run along the river in Norwich, from New Mills Yard where I used to live down to Pulls Ferry and around the Cathedral. Then when I moved to London it used to be Hampstead Heath. I lost count of the amount of times I’d go out for 30 mins and 2 hours later return hot and sweaty and knackered but happy. There was something very special about running through the woods at dawn.

In the absence of Hampstead, Mousehold Heath is a reasonable substitute – the view over Norwich from the Prison is almost as pretty as seeing London from atop Parliament Hill (ok, well not quite but it’s nice nevertheless).

5 minutes in, pre-occupied with how the sun shone through the branches and leaves above paving my way through the undergrowth, I tripped, stumbled and suddenly noticed the ground closing in.

I crashed down on a rock and skidded down an incline. Unimpressed I picked myself up and muttered at the inconvenience of it all – determined to have my run – and prepared myself to carry on.

My knee had other ideas. Upon closer inspection I realised that there was a significant chunk of flesh missing. 4 stiches, 3 hours and 1 ‘I’ve been a good patient’ penguin sticker later I sat on the sofa a little crest fallen, wondering ‘How am I going to practice yoga now?? I won’t be able to do it!’

‘I won’t be able to do that’ is something I hear all the time in class, now I’m a teacher.  There are many that exclaim in exasperation ‘I just can’t do yoga – I’m not flexible enough…’ or ‘I’m not fit enough’… ‘My body wasn’t built to do that…’ and anyone who has ever had to work at anything (or watched Flashdance) has probably found themselves saying the same thing at some point.

But let me share a little secret with you. The point of yoga is not to ‘do’ yoga.

There is a yoga sutra that goes a little something like this…(1.14) When that practice is done for a long time, without a break, and with sincere devotion, then the practice becomes a firmly rooted, stable and solid foundation. (Sah tu dirgha kala nairantaira satkara asevitah dridha bhumih).

The truth is, Yoga doesn’t care how flexible you are! It’s not interest in who you are. It is completely disinterested in your age - your postcode - your salary bracket... All those things that we usually allow to define us in everyday life DON’T MATTER!

You see yoga is a process. An unfolding. An unravelling. It returns us to who we are, by showing us who we really are, beneath all that noise of mind chatter and ego.

Not being able to do something is one of life’s greatest teacher – as is injury. How we react to things, how we approach that which we can’t do, how we feel, breath and move out of our comfort zone reveals to us something about ourselves, that perhaps we did not know.

Practice takes time. Anything that is worth while takes time! The important part is showing up, breathing, flowing and surrendering ourselves to whatever happens – with wholehearted acceptance. Over time we shift, our practice changes – challenging ourselves is the only way to truly grow. Yoga requires mental strength as well as physical strength, which won’t happen over night.

We have to let go. We have to lose ourselves and forget any expectation we have, in order to allow ourselves to be fully present.

Patanjali talks about this in the Sutra’s through the concepts of Abyasa (Practice) and Vairagya (non-attachment).

One compliments the other - Doing yoga is less about achievement and more about putting in the work, without attachment to the outcome. (And, enjoying the ride!)

When I first started a consistent Ashtanga practice I remember having real battles with my ego. Hauling myself through rounds of Sun Salutations that refused to flow, getting hot and bothered when my hands wouldn’t bind in Marichyasana C (let alone D) and bursting into tears every time I tried to do a headstand.

I would come to the mat with this attitude of needing to attack my practice, as though it were an enemy to be conquered. My body, my will - against it. I think that this is pretty much how I’d always pushed myself through most things – all the running, the daily spin classes… whatever else I decided I needed to accomplish, I simply tore it to shreds and I got a kick out of that. But, there was no respect there: for it or myself.

I often ask my students to take a moment to tune in to themselves, feel into their bodies and check in with their mind, then honour how they’re  feeling on that day. After all, there are lots of factors that affect how we feel and our bodies change daily, as does our practice, depending on how much sleep we’ve had, what we’ve eaten, stress, mental attitude, the moon(!), how physically fatigued we are and where you are in your cycle (for women), etc.

 It’s important to respect if we feel tired or sleepy, over-active or energised, and practice in harmony with that. After suffering from Chronic Fatigue and injuring myself on numerous occasions, I think I have now (hopefully), finally, learnt my lesson.

I realised pretty early on in my practice that if I was going to have any hope of progressing I really needed to become unconcerned with progress itself. So, I made an agreement – whatever happens on my mat is of absolutely no concern to my ego or my mind. Then I let go. 

It wasn’t a golden ticket or a quick fix – because the truth of the matter is, I will always be learning. But it allowed me to side step my mind and look at thing more objectively… both on and off the mat. And soon I found I stopped labelling things good and bad – this or that – and began accepting it as experience and learnt from it… both on and off that mat.

So, for anyone thinking about starting yoga, I would urge you to drop this concept that ‘doing yoga’ is the goal. It isn’t. Just begin. Take that first step towards something new. Sow the seed of intention and then let it all go. You will see yourself grow.  Yoga will bring you back to yourself, return you to your true nature and help you discover your true potential.  It is the practice of self-realisation.

Things take time and training. Guru-ji isn’t famed for having said ‘Practice and all is coming’ for nothing.

Although I have had to stop asana practice for a week or two, on account of stitches, I’m really rather grateful since they’ve made me appreciate my practice all the more and come back to it with fresh insight.

So here are a few things to bear in mind when you begin yoga;

1.       Focus on being present

2.       Breath

3.       Let go of expectation or expectation

4.       Surrender to the moment

5.       Keep practising

6.       Set your sights on where you want to be, but then accept where you are

For more details on new classes in Norwich visit; www.Samyamawellness.com

Beginners Mind - I'm a yoga teacher now

I taught a class the other day, on the theme of childish playfulness. 

I had a room full of yogi’s pulled funny faces at one another, walked around the room in a forward bend making ‘Beep, Beep’ noises played bumper cars, blew raspberries and gave themselves permission to fall when practicing balances.

It wasn’t typical for a class of mine. I teach Ashtanga Vinyasa, so usually it’s all about breathing big and deep and getting warm and sweaty, but I had chanced upon a playgroup earlier that day and had been utterly and profoundly inspired by a child’s ability to be completely and utterly absorbed by what it was doing.  And it made me wonder, just how wonderful it is to be that young; to find joy and delight in everything as if all of it were marvelous. To get up and keep on running, keep twirling,  keep cart wheeling, no matter how many times we fall.

So, I asked my class, putting the silliness aside, to approach their yoga practice with the same presence a child might. To look for something new and unseen in every posture, every breath and every moment, even if they’d done it a million times before, to transcend the qualities of their minds that told them their bodies wouldn’t bend that way and to leave their adult concerns behind.

It was a fun class, but for me there was also a lesson in it. For so long I was afraid of letting go of my old life and falling, for fear of failing. I was afraid I was a terrible yogi and somehow wasn’t made of the same stuff as a ‘proper’ yoga teacher.

For me Yoga teachers were always the thing of fantasy – someone else, but not me – mythical creatures, that rode around on a white Unicorn enlightening all those around her with a simple nod of the head and a quiet, humble ‘Namaste.’

My initial encounter with yoga was in a gym where, despite a boisterous kick boxing class next door and the rhythmic thud of people pounding the treadmill, I found myself in a place of utter calm and clarity.

From that first moment about 12 years ago something about yoga sparked my curiosity and I continued to practice on and off, like most folks.  It tended to wane when work got crazy, which was really when I needed it most.

Then something happened. I started to have this feeling that I was missing something. That whatever I was doing wasn’t quite right.

What I was doing was working as a Digital Project Manager within the advertising industry, building big budget web stuffs – where I was fulfilling a childhood ambition of working with big brands doing important things, while trying to look glamorous.

When I first got this – let’s call it an ‘itch’ – I quit my boyfriend. Then I quit my home town. I took off travelling to the furthest reaches of Tibet, Nepal and Thailand – and that helped for a bit – when I got back I was determined I need to ‘help’ people and decided the way I should do it was by working for a charity. This dutifully manifested itself when I first moved to London and was lucky enough to land a job (still in advertising) working with Oxfam and NSPCC… I literally thought all my Christmases had come at once. I threw myself into work and partying and making the most of everything London had to offer – I soon forgot all about yoga, unless it was outside a pub on a street corner somewhere in Soho (I’m telling you… it happened!) and I was on my second bottle red wine. To be honest, I think I was a bit of an arse. I was certainly pretty far up my own arse, I can tell you. I had a reputation as a bit of a ‘ball buster’ famed for my ability to ‘Get shit done, no matter what the cost’ (which probably means I wasn’t always very nice) and juggle at least 15 projects at once.

Then the ‘itch’ returned! Only it was worse this time. I ignored it and convinced myself I was happy and everything was fine. Then I woke up one day and couldn’t move – I mean, literally couldn’t get out of bed. It was terrifying and I soon realised I was suffering full scale burn out. I couldn’t go to work, I looked like crap and walking to the corner shop made me feel like I was going to pass out.

Remember that scene from ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ where Liz Gilbert is in a pile on her bathroom floor, praying for a way out of her own life? It wasn’t quite like that, but it was close enough that I can sympathise with the girl.

It’s a long story from that point to this, but the short version is this - during the subsequent weeks I spent either on the sofa or in bed I began to question everything, including who I really was.

Slowly but surely I began to realise I wasn’t all the things I had previously thought I was, or defined myself by, and bits of my personality and strips of my ego began to fall away – until there was just me; the me that had always been there and always would be, that could not be defined by a job, or a postcode, or a salary bracket or a boyfriend.

During this time there was a little voice inside my head urging me back to yoga and to start meditation. I figured I had two choices. I either commit myself as insane or I listen to it. Western medicine didn’t seem to be able to offer me any answers, so I listened… and thank God I did!

I began to drag my sorry, knackered ass to yoga once a week, but it soon turned into every day.

Yoga gave me the thing I felt I was missing. It helped me connect the dots somehow and made me feel more alive than anything else ever had. Ever could.

Then I began to notice my life change. The more I did yoga, the more my lifestyle choices altered to favour veggie food, quieter past times and genuine people and friendships. Meat and booze were now off the menu and my idea of a late night was being up past 10.30pm, as it interfered with my ability to rise at 5am to take a bus and two tubes to get to Mysore practice.

It wasn’t long before the ‘itch’ – this unidentified longing, this horrible, empty yearning of a missed something – was replaced by the ‘call.’ And I remember the exact moment it happened.

I came back from yoga class and for some reason I was sitting starring into my own reflection in the mirror (I’d probably been trying to squeeze a spot – I was doing a lot of detoxing around then!). I was looking at my own eyes and as my face faded away, I somehow saw beyond what I knew as my physical reality and that there was something behind my eyes that had long since known what was in store. It knew the score. 

In an instant I knew there had always been yoga and that this was somehow intended for me. That it had always been my highest intention to be drawn to yoga and to learn and experience as much as I could and then share it with others.

I always say that I didn’t find yoga, but rather it found me.  Once I recognized it, there was little I could do to ignore it. I needed to become a yoga teacher and from that point on, it was never a case of if or when, but how am I going to do this?

2 weeks later I was enrolled on a British Wheel of Yoga Foundation Course and had booked flights to Thailand, where my journey thus far would deliver me to my first Teacher Training in Ashtanga Vinyasa later, that year.

I’d like to say it was smooth sailing from there on in, but I’ll be frank the next few years were a roller coaster. I didn’t let go.

200hr Teacher Training was an awe inspiring and humbling experience. It gave me a fantastic grounding in yoga, but I knew it wasn’t the end. I became acutely aware that yoga is a subject as vast as the ocean and that if I dedicated a life time to its study, I would not even hold a cupful of knowledge, barely a drop!

When I returned to the UK I taught a little, but I got scared and had spent all my money, so I went running back to London and advertising with my tail tucked firmly between my legs, because as hard as it was to go back, it was what I knew.

It wasn’t long though before I was experiencing the same level of stress, ill health and general sense of disillusionment. I had been determined to keep up a consistent practice and teach yoga in my spare time, but the reality was I struggled to fit in my own practice let along find the time to teach others.

So I arrived back at square one as the ‘itch’ returned.  It returned at approximately 4am when I found myself sleep deprived, after a particularly testing project, trying to kip down on moth eaten sofa in the corner of a warehouse, feeling like I might have a heart attack or a nervous breakdown or both, all in the name of shifting more computer games consoles that I didn’t give a stuff about.

It was a familiar feeling by now – the ‘itch.’ And it felt like the only thing harder than leaving would be to stay. So, I dutifully packed a bag, gave notice at work and trekked off to the mother land to re-connect with yoga and the practice that was my salvation.

I still knew I wanted to teach yoga – that beneath the fear of not knowing enough or not being good enough – it was my passion and my calling.

So whilst in India I made a promise to myself to just try. To take a leap of faith, that would be required to make this work. To stop thinking and just do it! I rationalized that as much as I didn’t feel ready to unleash myself on a group of uber-third-series Ashtangis I had something to share with someone.

The beginners mind is a funny thing, but it’s important to remember that your students are your greatest teachers and that you will always be a student first and a teacher second.

I don’t think that I’m the best teacher in the world, but I’ve managed to side step my own fears and doubts and insecurities long enough to start giving it all a good go. I know what I know, because it’s what I have been taught and what I have experienced for myself. Like anything, theory and study is all very well and good, but the true way to get better and to learn is through your own experience.

Teaching yoga is something that I do now – that is my reality, rather than a dream. I find it rewarding think there’s something rather beautiful about giving something to someone that will (hopefully) make them feel good.

I’m glad I took the leap. Sometimes, in life we just have to close our eyes and jump, without knowing where we’re going to land or that there is something beneath, to catch us. It’s like those children, from whom I drew so much inspiration that day – we have to keep running and we have to let ourselves fall, but just because we fall it doesn’t mean we fail or should stop trying.

If I was to give anyone who was thinking about becoming a teacher advice – it would be simple;  

1.Listen to your heart. 

2. Find a decent course with a recognized, passionate and credible teacher. 

3. Practice, practice, practice. 

4. Always remember you are a student first and a teacher second. 

5. Begin! Don’t put off teaching, just start something! 

6. Remember what you’ve learnt, then let go.

Namaste… ;) It feels like I've come a long way! 

Now, where did I leave my Unicorn??