Why do I do Yoga?

Near the tail end of a thor­oughly pow­er­ful yoga class, the teacher told us to sit cross legged and put our hands to our hearts.  Silently med­i­tat­ing, cool­ing down, we held that posi­tion qui­etly for many moments.  Dur­ing that time the teacher said,

“We may not be burn­ing lots of calo­ries or get­ting more toned at the moment but fit­ness is so much more than that.  And that’s why you’re here [at the yoga stu­dio].  You all came here ini­tially due to your health.  It would be irre­spon­si­ble of me to NOT teach this class if you’re here for fit­ness and health.”

“Yoga is one of the only exer­cises that requires you to quiet your mind.”

That’s all I wanted to really share, but I’ll share a cou­ple other things…

When peo­ple are in a chal­leng­ing pose, it’s com­mon for peo­ple to have a look of ter­ror on their face.  So occa­sion­ally, you’ll hear the teacher make the sug­ges­tion for us to smile to lighten up.  That smile works very well, because once you start smil­ing it takes all the seri­ous­ness out of the equa­tion and makes every­thing imme­di­ately light­hearted.  I’ve also heard a teacher said, “Soften your lips!”  You don’t kiss peo­ple with stiff lips, do you?”  That was a great sug­ges­tion too.

There was this one pose when peo­ple were lift­ing their heads up exces­sively and instead of telling us to straighten our necks, the teacher said, “Get the wrin­kles out of your neck.  Where do you think the wrin­kles on your face come from any­way?”  That was pretty awesome.

Any­way, stuff like that!

Related posts:

1. Yoga Tips!
2. Say­ing you’re not flex­i­ble enough for YOGA is like say­ing you’re too dirty to take a BATH.
3. Dis­cover the Joy of Stretch­ing (Yoga Video Included)
4. Yoga at Home!
5. Using Yoga to Enter a Cold Ocean