As Yoga Teacher Training Comes to a Close...

What is yoga? 

I want to be able to tell you that my answer has changed greatly from the beginning of training to now. That I have become this uber-zen yogi who is ready to channel the Buddha and that I ooze peace and serenity out of my very pores. 

That would be an amazing answer. 

It would be a farce, but it would be an amazing answer.

The reality is that my answer is pretty much the same. I honestly just considered cutting and pasting my answer from the beginning of training and sending it in. But your time and attention and MY time and attention are worth more than that. I learned that in yoga.

When I answered this question six months ago, I wrote about how yoga is breath and breath is life. That remains true. What I have come to realize is that I do not have to be in the studio and on my mat in class to experience that. I can pause anywhere and anytime, take a slow deep inhale, hold, long exhale. Repeat. I realign. I calm. I connect. I find peace in the often tumultuous throws of life. I learned that in yoga.

Once I found my way to a yoga mat, I began to learn that I am braver than I believe, stronger than I seem, and smarter than I think. My instructors gave me that. My fellow students gave me that. My heart and my body and my mind gave me that. I learned through physicality and practice and discipline that I could build muscle and train my body to do things I never thought were possible. I have become strong. What I have since learned is that strength is not found or relished through sinking lower in Warrior, or maintaining that full bind in Extended Side Angle, or my hands finding their way to my heels in Ustrasana. I prove my strength when I attempt Bakasana over and over and over, despite an inability to advance my expression of the pose. I prove my strength when I skip a Vinyasa to drop into Child’s Pose (something I still struggle with). I prove my strength when I am insulted by a stranger in Starbucks parking lot and I do not attack back. I prove my strength when I take a comfortable seat, close my eyes, and connect with my Higher Power. I learned that in yoga.

I have experienced coming into myself over the past year and half. I have found grace and peace and groundedness and a home in my body. I have learned that I do me excellently and there is no one else that I need to try to be. I am 100% successful at being Jackson. I learned that in yoga.

In the beginning, Savasana was torture for me. The stillness. The hamster in its wheel in my brain running and running and running. Say “start to bring movement to your fingers and toes” dammit! Bring back the voices and the movement and the guidance. Bring back the stimulation to my mind that I crave because the quiet stillness is not a place I can tolerate alone. I am learning stillness. I am learning quiet. I am learning that in the silence and the stillness and the absence of outside stimuli, peace resides. It is hard for me to find this place throughout the day, but I can always find it at the end of practice. It waits for me there. What used to feel a torture has become a reward. I learned that in yoga.