Wednesday, January 21, 2015

what does yoga look like?

I often find myself reminding students “yoga isn’t about what you do or what the pose looks like, it’s about how you are in the pose, your state of mind and whether you are breathing. It's not WHAT you do, it's HOW you do it!”
  
Yet I find that, as someone who subscribes to a number of yoga-related media and who has many friends in the yoga community, I am constantly inundated with beautiful – utterly perfect – photos of someone or another effortlessly nailing an advanced posture. Numerous photos per day flood my ‘walls’ and ‘feeds’ alerting me simultaneously to both the stunning nature of this physical practice, as well as my decidedly inadequate status as a non-perfect, lumpy, and short-hamstringed individual.  

What gives? Are the only people out there in yoga-land made of rubber bands? Do they actually roll out of bed looking stunning before sunrise and get to the beach warmed up and ready to strike the pose just as a pod of pink dolphins begin to frolic in the background? 

What does yoga really look like?  

Your yoga. My yoga.  

The yoga that awaits me as I drag myself, half awake, to the mat each morning, with matted hair, and daggy gym shorts. The yoga that yawns my joints into motion through creaks and cracks. The yoga that still challenges me to accept where I am and not to ask for the moment to be anything more than what it is – perfect imperfection. 

The power of our practice is not always something that everyone can see through an instagram filter. 

More often, it is a slow and silent intimacy – that moment when the mind, the soul, and the body connect. Aha! HERE I am.

Here is my yoga tonight, in pictures – the fidgets, the fumbles, the falls, and the freedom. 














I want to see your yoga and share to inspire others. Do you dare to have your photo here?