Ostatnia aktualizacja: 2020-04-22. Autor: Milena

Yoga was all around me. Everyone practiced yoga and everyone said how important it was to practice yoga.

And if someone tells me that I should do something – I don’t do that. I didn’t read „Harry Potter”, I didn’t watch „The Lord of the Rings”, I didn’t play „The Witcher”. Okay, this last example is bad, considering I don’t play any games. Maybe only the interpersonal ones we all play. (See Eric Berne, Games people play”)

I went to yoga for the first time in Poland a few years ago. A friend of mine opened a yoga studio and I thought I’d give it a try. And I tried. And I was delighted. I focused so much on what I was doing – on posture, on muscles, on breathing – that I didn’t have time to think. I went to that class a few more times, but later I started getting tired of commuting. Warsaw, traffic jams, stuff like that. I quit.

On Terceira I had my second approach to yoga

A friend offered me to go together to a training led by our mutual friend. I packed my sports clothes and went. I went and… for most of the time I wondered when it would end. I felt stupid, because it was a friend of mine who was giving that class. I thought I’d be back, but I didn’t return for long time.

In fact, I didn’t return until February this year. A friend organized a joint yoga class for Friends’ Day. And again the same. I couldn’t follow my breathing or movement. Instead of focusing on the current moment, I was wondering when this moment would end. Instead of being calmer, I was getting more and more annoyed.

And everyone was delighted. But me.

Really – everyone but me. And again I was stupid because of a friend who really is a good instructor. And a good person. I felt so strange that I finally started talking to her about what happened. She told me that for me yoga is rather a mental than a physical work. And that I can try different types of yoga, maybe some will serve me better than ashtanga yoga, where you really need to repeat the movement-breath sequences. But that I will have to work on stopping striving for perfection. I’ll have to accept that not everything has any sense and purpose, that sometimes you can just turn off.

I walked with it and walked, and started asking other people about their experiences. I blamed myself that such yoga did not suit me. That after a few minutes I’m tired of repeating the same sequence of movements. I didn’t want to let myself think that maybe it just wasn’t for me…

Finally, another friend took me to the trainer with whom she was practicing yoga for a few years. I had heard before that it is very difficult yoga, that it is very technically demanding and advanced. Well…

This yoga – that was it!

I found something for myself and got rid of guilt that ashtanga yoga didn’t suit me! How was is possible? I just loved these new classes from the first meeting. SwáSthya yoga was my type! This is yoga, in which I have to focus so much on what I do that I forget about everything else. This is yoga, which requires from me physically much enough to let my mind rest. It’s yoga that really calms me down.

I can compare the experience of these yoga classes only with climbing. And not just because your wrist can hurt you when you start practicing either climbing or yoga. I mean rather the peace they bring me. Both, in completely different ways, allow me to breathe deeper. To be here and now.

Focusing on here and now is what we need

Our brain has a tendency to stray and search for problems. It’s normal, it works like that. If we had not once seen a mammoth running into our direction or a small poisonous spider, we would have been screwed. It’s natural that the brain protects us.

But we must protect our brain. And orselves. Turn off sometimes and allow orselves to be. To gain internal strength. For me, yoga is a tool for that right now. And I am grateful that my friend decided to take me with her that day to the class. And that I decided to go even though it was a really crazy day.

And you know what? I don’t care anymore that I can’t do a million things at the classes. Instead, I thank my body for becoming stronger and more flexible day by day. Thank it for carrying me around this world and letting me enjoy my life. I am grateful for what I have. And I’m slowly working on more. Here and now.