Being Present

I often find myself making statements like this, "Yoga is..."

And the ending to that sentence is almost never the same.  One of the most difficult things I've faced as a new teacher isn't describing the poses, or teaching alignment or modifications for different bodies.  I have trouble transmitting "the yoga."

I want my students to leave class with a greater sense of peace than when they entered the classroom. I've been to so many classes where the teacher is able to transmit the feeling of "yoga" through his or her manner of speech, pacing, and small comments made at just the right moment.  

There have been a few classes where that harmonious feeling has been present, but I've also taught quite a few where it just wasn't happening.  And it seemed like the more I focused on trying to get that feeling, the more elusive it became.  Of course.  Isn't that the way of things?

According to Patanjali's Yoga Sutra 1.2 

"Yoga is the restriction of the fluctuations of mind-stuff," as translated by James Haughton Woods (Harvard Press, 1935).  Alexandria Crow, a modern vinyasa teacher and blogger, says it more succinctly, "Yoga is NOW."

I love that-- being present.  Isn't that what yoga is all about?  Being here in the now.  So I'm doing yoga as I breathe in the line at the grocery store instead of getting angry and irritated.  I'm doing yoga when I look away from my phone to look into the eyes of my child and interact with him.  Yoga is being here, not focused on the mistakes I made yesterday or making meal plans for next week.

We use the asanas as a tool to help us get there.  The physical movements help us come out of our "mind-stuff" and into our bodies, experiencing the here and now.  

So when we step onto our mats for a yoga session and spend the whole time thinking about how we look or if we're holding a pose longer than our neighbor... that's not yoga.  That's just exercise. 

My favorite form of yoga is stopping what I'm doing, getting on my knees, and looking into the eyes of my 2-year old as she tries so hard to tell me what just happened to her.  That may not sound like yoga, but it brings me back to the present every time.  Simply looking into the eyes of a small child, whose entire world is the present, makes me remember that what's happening NOW is important. 

Bodhi Yoga