MY STORY

I  am ordinary. I was never an athlete, a dancer, or a gymnast. In fact, growing up, I was so woefully uncoordinated that I was chosen last for every sports team in P.E. from grades 1 through 9, at which point P.E. was mercifully eliminated from my schooling. 

I MEAN every sport: dodgeball, capture the flag, basketball, softball, badminton, volleyball, soccer, bowling. My schoolmates could not count on me to make a play, or to not screw up someone else’s. My right foot had no idea what my left elbow was doing--so I don’t think I need to explain how my dance lessons turned out.

What does this have to with yoga? Exactly. Everything.

I started practicing yoga in my mid twenties for the same reason that many other people do: because I saw paparazzi pictures of beautiful actresses with yoga mats tucked under their arms. (Or I suppose nowadays, one starts after seeing some gorgeous Instagram models posing). Long ago having given up any belief that I could be decent at any physical endeavor, yet desperate for a form of fitness that did not make me want to die within three minutes of starting, I signed up for a yoga class.

I liked the chanting in the beginning and at the end. The vinyasa? It was hard work, but so was everything else that I had ever done. I hobbled home after that first class and fell asleep. And then I took another class, and another...but why? Why did I keep going back?

I’ll tell you, it didn’t have anything to do with my body, it had to do with my mind. I realized there, on my mat, that sometimes that teacher would cue something like , “lift the right leg up”, and I thought, okay, I’ll probably fall”, but then I would lift my right leg up---and I didn’t fall. At least not for a few seconds.  I slowly realized that I was much more capable than what my mind would let me believe. And if I had no idea that I could do this one thing, I wonder what else I can do that I am not aware of?

What really hooked me, with yoga, though, is this: there is no such thing as winning or losing.

There are no points. There is no success and there is no failure. You’re not an amateure “yogi” and then you go “pro”. Everyone is a practitioner. No one is “bad” at yoga, and no one is “good” at yoga; everyone is practicing yoga. 

What healed me, and over time, transformed me into the best version of myself, was having a place where I could go multiple times a week, where if I listened to the teacher, and concentrated with all of my mind, and gave all of the effort in my heart, and offered to my mat the capacity that my body possessed that day, it was ENOUGH. It was more than enough; it was perfect. Finally, me, being myself, giving my all, was perfect.

And that is why I am here to give yoga to you.