One of our teachers always asks that we arrive at the beginning of each practice with no expectations. He encourages ‘a beginner’s mind’.
There’s a full spectrum of experience waiting to be explored.
As in life, when we adopt expectations, we only set ourselves up to fall, because nothing is ever as we desire or intend it to be.
We can’t be present if we’re dreaming or perceiving how things could or should be.
The gift of yoga is presence. The practice is a deep dive into the full spectrum of being and seeing now.
We begin slow and grounded, falling onto breath, allowing ourselves to soften and yield into each rotation, spin, ripple, rise and fall imaginable.
There are peaks and falls; the easeful and the spicy. Every movement allows the body to sift through and release the information overload and energetic resonations we collect daily.
Eventually we fully surrender into savasana, dropping everything we’ve been carrying or experiencing.
In gifting the body this full spectrum of movement, we’re somehow able to experience a full spectrum of sensation.
It’s like having watched a movie in sepia-and-white, only to have it replay in colour.
Or seeing a wide expanse of landscape with no audio. Then someone dialling the volume to maximum.
Life becomes richer, more authentic.
We see colours and feel textures that we never imagined existed.
Like hanging a sheet out to dry, the creases only drop if we allow there to be some stirring of air.
We need to trust that gravity will hold us, or catch us if we fall.
We have to be willing to let the fabric of us be held, and led.
And the true beauty of the practice is that it’s constantly teaching us how to live life.
Beyond the obvious like catching ourselves if we fall, breathing through struggle, shifting edges over time.
It teaches us that every facet exists to support the shape of us.
The practice shifts every time, every moment, every breath.
It’s important that we keep eyes open in each moment. Otherwise, we miss the full spectrum.
This party won't last forever.
