It is a Personal Practice

My home studio offers a free two hour beginner Yoga workshop once a month.    It is a nice gesture on their part and I am sure there is a hope that some of the attendees will sign up for a regular membership.      I myself have been telling people to come to this one class to see if they like Yoga.  I think that this would be a good start for them.

Starting a Yoga practice can be  easy or quite difficult  depending on one's approach.   I have been told by many people that they are too "inflexible" to practice Yoga or they do not have the time to start a practice.  My response to that is that it is your body and it will be more inflexible tomorrow if you not do anything today.  Other people have told me that they do not want to look "bad" in a class of bendy people.   This disinclination to "|look bad" on their part may be the biggest impediment to beginning a practice.   If you learn to work within your limits and understand that any practice is personal and for the practitioner alone,  much of the fear  of looking "bad' can be eliminated.   In Yoga,  it really is all about you.

From the day we have entered Kindergarten,  most of us have been judged and evaluated.   We get graded in school and then when we begin our life's work, we get annual reviews and get graded there.   As a result of this lifetime of being evaluated, we establish a mindset of constantly being under the judgement of others.     With my Yoga practice,  I found it difficult to pull one away from that judgmental mindset.   When I first started practicing,  I would think about how the instructor was evaluating my posture in an pose.   I looked at is a grade and wondered how I was doing compared to everyone else.  In reality,  it should have been about me and  my practice and nothing else.   My  practice is what I  make of  it, and it should not be subject to perceptions of judgement.

When we take the judgement of others into our Yoga practice,  we can either do one of two things. We either push ourselves beyond our boundaries and risk getting injured or we hold back in fear of failing.    The correct thing to do is to live your practice within the confines of your mat and to put blinders on to both what others are doing and what you think others are thinking of  you.   You are on the mat for your own needs.

I think back to how I was basically crushed during my first class.   It was hot,  I was not prepared and I was out of shape.    Five years later I still  have classes and home practices where I struggle.   It is a continual practice of learning about myself and living within my physical limitations. One has to remember that it is your practice and it becomes what you make of it.

Namaste.