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This the year is a time for reflection, for myself, it is how the year has affected my yoga business. Cancelling public classes was hard and I genuinely thought his was merely a temporary situation. The online classes have been interesting, and I continue with these whilst the demand this there but it’s not a great medium for teaching a 3-dimensional practice. One-to ones are just too risky in the current climate, one thing we do subscribe to in yoga is not to harm ourselves and others.
Despite this, I remain positive and optimistic about the future of yoga in our society and being able to teach.
The pandemic and its constraints have allowed me the time to get deeper into my practice and study more about yoga, it’s evolution and method. I really think that, despite the obvious stigma that is associated with this practice, it is needed more than ever.
I have been lucky to teach some teens recently who have really embraced yoga, they are open to these holistic initiatives and once they have taken a class, they get it straight away. They see the benefit to their lives and are enthused about learning and practicing more, it really is an easy sell.
At the other end of the scale, I have some great yogis in my classes at Wellington leisure centre who are truly inspirational, octogenarians that can still hold quite challenging postures and move fluently and mindfully, through the class. They too recognize the benefits of yoga both physical and mental.
We all need to figure out coping mechanism for the stresses in life which come at us thick and fast. I would encourage you to consider yoga, at least as a means of finding things out about yourself, identifying and releasing your true potential and improving your mental wellbeing.
This is much more than developing physical fitness, the method is more about developing techniques for total relaxation, taking away the veils of tension we carry in our bodies and then our real potential can express itself, unhindered. Recognising the signs of stress and tension and training the body and mind to respond to these instinctively.
We cannot avoid the difficulties and problems that life throws up, but we can learn to navigate them safely, aspire to live a life, free of tension and anxiety, how about that?
The New Year is a time when we all reset, take stock, maybe get fitter, reevaluate. If you are interested in developing your mind and body to deal with the issues that occur, perhaps improve your fitness in a safe, sustainable way, then please do consider yoga, there is so much more to it than you might think.