Yoga Anyone?

That was it. I kneeled on the floor, laced my fingers together and set my forearms on the floor. I lifted my knees, and slowly moved my legs towards my chest, raised my right leg followed by my left leg. I was upside down and I was still alive. After two years of my yoga practice, I finally did my own headstand.

My first encounter with Yoga was in 2001, during a study tour to India. It did not impress me much. The business school in Gurgaon, outskirt of New Delhi where we stayed, invited a yoga teacher who asked us to wake up at 4.30 am in the morning, be ready at 5.00 am in the hall and lie on our back. He was a middle age man, with a big belly and white hair.  The scene was still very clear in my head when he took a chair in front of us, sat, and started giving breathing instructions which did not make sense. With a strong accent, he kept on repeating his mantra: Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, and that was it. I was still remember that  he instructed us afterwards to lie on our belly, raise our heads up, and he repeated his sacred mantra again: inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Sitting on the chair but with crossed legs, I could see his eyes were half closed and his big belly was moving up and down, following his breathing rhythm. “Why on earth I do this?”  I asked myself.

Under the impression that yoga is a passive, boring activity, I turned more into gym, swimming and jogging for my exercise routine. In 2005, more and more friends of mine were actively doing yoga and they persuaded me to try few classes. I tried to attend one and it was such a turn-off. The teacher was moving with very fast pace while instructing poses which I have never done before. Without any knowledge of what downward dog and cat poses were, I tried to keep up with the movement and could not feel any enjoyment at all. Arrgh!  It was too fast! The poses unbelievably stretched every angle of my body very fast that I was afraid of getting injured.  I confirmed at that time, “Yoga is not my cup of tea”.

In the end of 2006, I felt that my life was off-balance and I started questioning my own religion. I really felt the necessity to explore more spiritual angle in life and I sensed that my understanding about my religion at that time was not “aligned” with my inner voice. I did not find comfort anymore in doing my religious practice. Something was missing. I investigated and made some surveys through websites, books and publications about different types of meditations and spiritual courses. Throughout these readings, I discovered that yoga was more than just a breathing movement. It is way beyond imitating animal postures and motions. It is not just an exercise.

It is a path for transformation.

I was overwhelmed with this findings since I did not feel it during my previous encounters with yoga. I decided to reset my opinion, unlearn what I experienced and embarked into a new journey of yoga with no judgment. I looked for a place where I could get more description of those animal poses and the benefits provided. Then, I thought I should get a yoga teacher who could teach at slow pace, and corrected my postures.

Good intentions are always come with positive results since I finally found a yoga studio which satisfied my query and curiosity.  It was interesting, it was calming, it was what I need. I found myself falling in between sleep and conscious during Savasana (corpse pose) in few classes. I started learning more difficult poses and in those days, despite ascending asana practice toward spiritual journey, my practice transcended from spiritual quest to physical needs. I became a yoga addict (or more precisely, one of those asana junkies). I attended other classes and workshops with faster pace, and I started practicing three times a week or more. In my spare time, I kept thinking how I could deepen my upper back in Urdhva Dhanurasana (wheel pose), how I move my center of gravity to lift my legs in Koundinyasana, and how I could stretch my hamstring in Hanumanasana (front splits),  until one day I overstretched myself. I tore my hamstrings and it created painful lowerback.

Did I quit after that?

Yes, but temporarily. I asked myself why did it happen and realized that, of course, Ego played its role. I forced myself beyond my body capacity to accommodate the stretch. That’s how I learned that yoga teaches us about life. If you want to progress, you can push harder, but your body needs time to adjust. All short-term gain has always higher risk than long-term gain. When I pushed my body, I exposed my body to higher risk of injury.

There is no such thing as a shortcut without consequences.

It has been more than five years now since I started practicing yoga, and I am still hooked.  The journey is like a sinusoidal wave, keeps fluctuating between addiction to the endorphin release after an intense physical practice, and a self-inward journey.  

Discovering Ashtanga Mysore practice this year, my self-practice has been improving tremendously. This practice was popularized by K Patthabi Jois, and the method is to learn, memorize and practice certain set of postures. Each pose is taught by the teacher and one cannot learn the subsequent pose without mastering the pose(s) that has been taught. The practitioner does his/her self-practice by memorizing the sequence and the teacher corrects and adjusts his/her postures.  Many people feel that it is a “boring” yoga since we practice the same postures, over and over again.  

But Ashtanga Mysore practice resonates with me. Although I keep repeating the same postures, the sense of it is different in each practice. The mood influences the practice and the practice influences the mood as if it is a cycle.  I found that this method increases my self-awareness, not only when we practice, but also when I am off-the-mat. It forces me to be truthful and honest to myself, because body does not lie. If we force our body beyond its capacity, we got problems, sooner or later.  If we are patient but consistent,   doing our practice with intelligence and awareness, the reward is certain. When we master the posture, move our body with awareness, focus on what we feel rather than on what we think, we then forget all those technicalities, rely to our intuition and our practice becomes meditation in motion.

It is my wish to maintain my Ashtanga mysore practice consistently, as  the tapah, one of the key tools to work progressively towards the ultimate goal of yoga: Self-Realization, to find God in me, the Immanent God. 

Patanjali  Yoga Sutras II.1: tapah svadhyāya Īsvarapranidhānāni kriyāyoga

Burning zeal in practice, self-study of holyscriptures, and surrender to God are the acts of yoga