Any of you who have done my yoga classes might recall an invitation I often make in the front end of the practice, ‘To stop & consider why we are here today, what quality do we seek to cultivate through our practice of yoga today?'
When I first started yoga (over 25 years ago, yikes!) the objective was simple, I wanted to surf better. I was transitioning from a decade of playing rugby to what I hoped would be a stellar career as a surfer, I’d read that a few pro surfers practiced yoga, I’d always enjoyed stretching, the logic I thought was simple.
It’s a fairly common pathway into yoga practice I think, we come for our bodies & stay for our minds.
To be honest at that stage I didn’t really consider that I might have emotional & mental issues that would one day need a lot of attention, and little did I know that there were systems of yoga well beyond my comprehension that would offer exactly the answers that I didn’t even know that I would seek!
And yet there yoga was, a decade later when I hit a brick wall in my life’s journey and needed to spend some quality time looking deeply into how I was showing up in this world.
The 'Why' of my Yoga Practice had changed, whereas initially I had thought to come to yoga to be strong, sexy & flexible, as my journeyed with yoga, happiness became the goal, as I went further than that (I realised alas that any happiness was going to be temporary) my goal became to remain equanimous, to be content with all of life as it presents, to allow myself all the feelings, sadness, ecstasy, anger, anxiety and joy.
These days I practice to keep my body strong and flexible, as my body ages I feel more than ever grateful of the gift yoga gives, keeping me physically attuned so I can run, dance, play and surf better than ever. The physical practice of asana is as important now as it ever was, yogis learn to move with intelligence, avoiding injury and managing energy to create maximum effect for every action.
