However, I struggle with practicing on my own. You would think someone who has been practicing music almost her entire life, would find it easy to practice something else. But it's not. Yoga is not like music where I go to a lesson and have an assignment for the next week, with a certain expectation of what I will accomplish. It's not running, where I lace up shoes and know they physical movements I need to do in order to accomplish a run (literally just putting one foot in front of the other...a beautiful kind of mindlessness). Instead, to practice yoga, there are patterns and poses that I have to come up with on my own that speak to my body in that exact moment. And it's not that I'm incapable of coming up with a sequence, but I find I am so concerned I won't do enough of the "right" postures or that because I haven't pre-planned it or written it out, that I will forget to do something that I love, or will mess up a something as simple as sun salutations. And I know that's not what yoga is about-there is no messing up and there isn't a wrong way to do it, but I still hesitate before rolling out my mat and tackling it on my own. I always feel like I'm short-changing myself out of something, whether it be that I don't spend enough time in poses, simply breathing and allowing my body to open up and relax, or that I missed a pose that my body might really be needing that day.
But then, when I shut out all that chatter about how I think my home practice should be, I'm reminded of what yoga is at its core: finding your inner peace. The poses don't matter, it's who you are when you get there.
No comments:
Post a Comment