Homework

We have a homework assignment due this weekend and I was really excited about it. Our teacher asked us "What matters, or what do we care about? (in terms of yoga) What engages us in a pose, or I boil it down to - Why do I keep practicing? Then we had to find a picture that embodied it. In our last class we went through a long list of reasons people stay engaged in a pose and continue to practice, such as physical sensations, breath, alignment, drshti (focal point), imagery, music, spoken word, the process of serenity, humor, community, prana, etc... I extracted 4 things that mean the most to me and are the reasons I keep coming back to the mat - Community, Beauty, Strength and Tradition. I looked through over a year's worth of Yoga Journal magazines and other yoga magazines I save. I never found anything that really spoke to me on all 4 levels that I mentioned. So I went looking in Capoeira images and chose the one I have posted here. To me Capoeira also embodies community, beauty, strength and tradition. Granted I have only been practicing for a few months, I feel the draw to continue my study of it because of these reasons. Seeing an image like this inspires me to keep going at it.

Along with the photo, we had to write a paragraph explaining what matters to us. I was excited about this assignment because sometimes I feel like I just go through the motions - I show up to my class on Tuesday morning because I always do, it's part of my routine. I can sometimes forget why I love yoga and am devoting so much to it. The big picture escapes me because I am lost in the details. So this has helped me to connect with those reasons again and now I have it in a place I can come back to when I forget. I can also re-evaluate it, maybe the list will grow and change over time. It's always a process, isn't it?

Here is my response for class:

The things that bring me to my classes each week, and motivate me to teach yoga are community, beauty, strength and tradition. Through yoga, I have made amazing friends and have a way to get close to others. I have been able to explore a new world, be exposed to new people and activities and find a healthy way to connect with others. Beauty is another reason I practice. I love to see what human bodies are capable of and I like to watch the way different bodies move and approach a pose. But the beauty aspect is two-fold, as it is also how I feel about myself as I am practicing and as a result of my practice. Yoga has helped me find a deeper self-confidence, something that has been a very long process. Along similar lines is strength, which is not only physical strength, but also mental strength. The practice of yoga tones the body, but it also tones the mind, teaching it to focus on the task at hand, to come back to the present when it wanders and to be open to what life puts in front of us. Lastly, after years of an asana practice, I have been recently finding that the history and tradition of yoga is another reason that I come back to my mat. I am continually amazed that things that were written about in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are still relevant today and resonate deeply within me. I have begun to scratch the surface of Sanskrit and want to go deeper with my study of that as well.