Television was my first yoga instructor. I remember watching shows,and doing the same yoga practice for a year every night, thinking to myself, and “I got a capable downward facing dog now! my flexibility is great! I need a different video.” I went on thinking that yoga was all about flexibility and strengthening of the body. All I knew was that I felt capable and that the woman teaching the class through the video made me feel capable for that precious half hour that I save into it. But I then saw myself wanting more -- more videos,more classes, and more instruction.Seeking a broader understanding of the practice, or I started looking into local yoga studios. Not being the richest of people I was forced to retract advantage of promotional deals which ranged from a free session to a whole week of practice before you had to pay. I couldn't afford the 150 dollars a month for a membership. But I was dedicated. At first it was great,getting different techniques from all sorts of different teachers telling me how I should and should not trot, what the correct posture was for a certain asana (an asana means trot or pose.) But there are only so many yoga studios in the South Bay. I was forced to form a choice. Either start paying for a yoga class or purchase videos and attain them at home. Either way I had to spend some money, and money I didn't have. Getting paid to me means actually getting a step closer to pay off rent,transportation and food for the next two weeks. Paying such a high monthly fee was almost enough for me to quit the practice all together. Yoga felt like a luxury I couldn’t afford.
My economic solution was I started studying books on the art, reading as much as I could on the practice. I learned about the origination and its changes throughout time, and whole dimensions and depths on yoga that I had not received from videos or classes. It’s a pretty practice,showing different ways to focus the breath so as to awaken energies within the body, using movements to bring illumination to different parts of the body. I started seeing that yoga is an expression of the individual to wake up his or her inner self. Learning ways to dance and ride the wave of life instead of constantly fighting your way through. Yoga, and was not a stretch pose,it was a way of being one with the world. Looking at the origination of the word Yoga in devout texts, there were no actual moves written down for the people to follow. It just started as the connection of the intellect with the divine, or eternity,god, the universe, and any other words to define a person's particular inner self.
These days,I often net family and friends asking me to run them through a yoga practice. I am ecstatic when they demand me because it gives me a chance to expose what I have learned and am still learning everyday. I often tell them that it is not just a teacher student type of dynamic. That it is more like a dance between two peers learning from each other. They tell me their weaknesses, strengths, or stresses and problems in life. I just cater to them,being a support system for their progression. And they also back me. There’s been many times that someone, due to inherited flexibility or strength could attain a lot better at a trot that I taught then I could attain myself. They back me in showing techniques in a more comprehensible way. I feel that the genuine yoga in this is the time we spend together, or it’s like going out and getting a cup of coffee or going to the beach with a friend. It’s a shared experience. I learn the body capabilities of the person,them telling me how they trot, me telling them my comparison. It’s a pretty practice, and a practice that I now retract to the genuine world,doing Yoga the exercise when I can, but having yoga within me at all times.
When I believe of someone doing a downward facing dog, and doing all these elaborate tricks with there body I see them as pretty,but I don't believe they catch the essence of yoga any more than my quest for the answers of life through different means – taking a walk in the hills, or sitting still with my breath. Taking one's body through all of these loops, and craving and wanting more yoga”,I see it turning into a monster. I read people saying in magazines, “If I don't attain yoga at least three times a week, or I don't feel complete.” It’s funny to me because it makes the one thing that the practice was made for,to feel complete and at one, the same thing that has you feeling incomplete when it not present.
This may sound a bit foolish, or but when I believe of yoga,I believe of my dog (Chico). He watches me go to and from work, rushing, or reading,watching tv, being unhappy, or being cheerful,eating, being angry and all sorts of other activities I attain in my quest of life, or hardly taking time to sit down and like the moment,or at least acknowledging that every moment counts. You hear so many stories of people looking back in their death beds telling their family and friends to like every moment because once that moment is gone it leaves forever. The practice of yoga is the same way, we keep heading for that perfection, and that perfect pose,that next practice, not seeing that the concentration, and time,and care for you save into the pose is what matters, but we often look past that. Above all gurus, or ancient texts,philosophers, psychiatrists and practitioners that I have went to or looked up for answers on yoga, or I feel as if Chico is the sage in my life. It does not matter if he does not speak,just his look tells me all I need to know. That we attain all these things, stress ourselves out, and save yourself into balls,twist, run, or jump,practice yoga, not knowing that there is no need to attain all this, and that Shavasana (final resting pose) is there from the beginning,all of the actions done to net you there are just to net you to see it. See that life just is, life is yoga.
Source: siliconvalleydebug.org