Everyday, Everywhere, Yoga!

I stumbled into my coworker today, at the regular coffee break in our office lunchroom (I work at an Engineering office during the days and teach yoga at nights and weekends). He mixed his tea and looked quizzically as he asked 'Now that the baby is born, when do you get to do yoga?'.

I responded, 'I'm doing yoga right now', and in the light-hearted spirit of the conversations we normally shared, he flashed his hand, shook his head, chuckled and walked off.

I smiled, not that I could explain it all in the few minutes we get to come up for air in that office, but I really was doing yoga right then and there...without the mat, without the candles, without the music...yes I was doing yoga. I was aware of where I was tense and where I was relaxed. I was aware of how my body was aligned and I was aware of how all this was affecting my emotions.

Yoga is not something that ends when you roll up that sticky mat after that once-a-week ninety minute class. The awareness it causes has application in several areas of everyday life.

A number of my yoga students after around the fourth class come back to me and say 'You know, ever since I started this yoga I have become more aware of my posture, my breathing, myself'. I would then respond quite proudly, 'Then you've already gotten the point'.

The reason yoga has nearly 600 poses in its syllabus, which throw the body into every configuration imaginable, is not just for an outward show. It demands the cultivation of a very profound knowledge of oneself. In a class I would issue instructions like 'Press your thigh bone into your hamstrings' or 'Press your shoulder blades into your chest' or 'Ground your inner heels down', always demanding an increased awareness of an area of the body little thought of on a daily basis.

It may start out as seeming purely physical, but then that awareness travels from the limbs, to the smaller muscles and bones, to the breath, to the emotions, to the mind and then the soul. That is why Yoga is really a journey to One's True Self.

Hmmm...maybe I will try to get all that in at the next coffee break :) Wish me luck.