Off the Mat 1

I am learning in yoga class how easily I can get "offended" by others actions. I take things too personally. It can be crowded in class and hard to find a space enough to stretch myself into position. Lines can form as students grab extra blankets, chairs, and bolsters. Props can run out leaving me feeling quite perturbed, left out, and neglected.

"Take responsibility for yourself and others," our teacher tells us in class. Which means, take up only the space you need, make room for others, help your neighbor put away props, and watch where you put your foot. Being very attentive to where your body is in space is part of our practice. Through this I see how difficult it is for me to translate an instruction into action, "I though I was lifting my chin, straightening my arm, twisting at the ribs, making space for my neighbor."

In taking responsibility for myself and others in class, I see how many times I, in contrast, expect others to care for me. How I can feel offended when someone "takes up too much of my space", puts a foot too close to my chin, grabs the blanket I took down from the shelf. I do these things as well when I am tired, frustrated, angry, off-centered and without care to how it makes my neighbors feels. When my first reaction is to grasp at things, space, attention more tight in class, I am trying now to practice more graciousness and in this way find more ease and compassion, lightness in my body, in my life.

It is a practice I am learning to bring to my life off the mat. I try to leave early for appointments so I don't have to hurry in the car and feel the need to drive through the crosswalk, to let another car pass, to slow down when approaching a light. I notice more now how others make my way easier as well, slowing down when I am wanting to cross, letting me take a parking space, holding a door. It is a way to care for ourselves and others, to not interpret others actions as a personal affront, to find a way towards kindness to myself, to others.

I practice yoga

This has been my mantra lately.

When the dark pull of longing might take me away from myself I remember, "I practice yoga."

When I feel lost, numb, afraid, I tell myself, "This is my yoga practice."

When waves of sadness wash over me, "This to is my yoga."

I am breaking open to something new in my life and it can hurt. My practice offers me a way into the pain, the emptiness whose contours I touch, gently with compassion and in this way find spaciousness, freedom, choices.

In our backbend practice this week (up again and again and again our teacher urges us) I found a wide bright expansive landscape inside. Like the view from a mountain top on a clear day, all before me appeared with clarity, equanimity, poise.

"This is my practice," to remember this spaciousness even as storm clouds gather, the horizons thicken, to welcome the heavy rain into my dry soil.

My practice is yoga.

Why We Practice?

My teacher asks this of us from time to time.

Lois Steinberg, a Senior Iyengar teacher answered this way, "For joy and presence."

Here are some responses from others in my class:

For...Inner peace, Quiet, the Soul, Flexibility, Strength, Compassion, Self-reflection, Equanimity.

I am trying to practice every morning, with devotion, with focus (dhayana). It is a commitment I have long sought but which has eluded me. Over the years I have had a home practice; sometimes with the radio on, sometimes just a dog pose and one leg stretch. Over the past two years, now that my child is older and I have time in the morning, I have begun a more regular practice. But it has still been one that can lack devotion, focus, my loving attention. It has gotten repetitive.

But, now, I am letting go of thinking about having a more focus, engaging, concentrated practice and I am doing. Having an intention to practice is a first step but I find I need something to fuel that intention; especially on cold winter mornings when it is still dark when I rise!

Something more to get me up and to the mat, more than strength, a body that looks and feels "good", a nimble back; all things that may or may not be depending on the day. Something that is unchanging, dependable, reliable.

That something more I have found to fuel my intention, at least for now, is myself, quiet, calm, penetrated by a warm clear inner light; my soulself who is inside waiting for the muddy waters to settle with as much yearning to meet me as I have to meet her.