What is Yoga? | Your Instructors | Note from Robin | Featured Articles | Archived Notes Practicing Practice by Nan Palmer Waking in the morning, I roll out of bed, brush my teeth and wash my face, pull on some outdoor clothes and shoes and head outside to walk in the fresh new light. My body warms up slowly as I go down the first hill and up the next one. Thoughts of the day ahead pass quietly through my mind. Twenty minutes later I'm back home, striding up the driveway with a warmed-up body. As I light a candle and some incense, my practice ideas begin to form. What part of my body is speaking today? How's my neck, my shoulders, my hips and my back? Sitting cross-legged on my bolster, I begin to breathe. It's time to practice and I'm so glad to be here. I've been studying yoga for over ten years. At first, I just attended the classes once or twice a week and didn't even think of practice. As I began to feel the difference in my body and in my mind, I would consider practice. What usually came to mind were the obstacles: no place to practice, no time distractions of family and a hectic life. It wasn't until I made the commitment to teach that regular practice came into my life. I knew that if I didn't practice I couldn't teach. All of the countless classes and workshops and training amount to to nothing until I take them into my being, my body and make them my own. This is my time to place, to explore, to listen. It is there, on my mat, that the truth arises. There may be moments of pure joy, emotional outpouring or revelation. Sometimes my husband or daughter join me. The door is left partly open and the quiet is respected until savasana or meditation is complete and the candle blown out. Some days practice is only twenty minutes, other days I have the luxury of more time to "go with the flow". Always, always as I open my eyes there is the feeling of gratitude: for yoga, for my teachers, my students and myself. |
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