Living in Grace
If you've been reading this blog, you know my love and gratitude for two teachers who've been instrumental in my yoga journey - who've taught me more than just asanas - Daphne and Anton who started Routes of Yoga to take their gift of teaching to the world.
I've learnt from them to be graceful - to take things slow - to enjoy the process of learning instead of focusing on the results, to be humble in your achievements and to not let failure and disappointment bog you down (not for too long anyway). I've had a rough couple of weeks, personally because I want something so badly to happen - and realised very recently that it's probably going to continue going to be a dream - and something that i will have to let go of soon, for my own good. Maintaining the balance between effort and detachment is my theme for living life. A very dear friend of mine, once told me that usually in life between your work and your personal life, there'll always be ups and downs - very rarely (and moments that you need to be immensely grateful for) will both of them be perfectly harmonious. And in the lives that most of us lead, as long as one of those aspects is more or less ok, you can (with some help) pull the other one up. So you're basically riding a seesaw at all points in time.
As sad as that sounded at that point in time - i realised that my experiences overtime have shown that to be true. And suddenly i was in this position where my personal life had taken a massive whack on the face and my work was collapsing as well. I'm usually a strong person in the sense, that I do not depend on my job to define me or add to my identity in totality, which is probably why I do so many things outside of just a 9-5 job. I'd be terrified for one thing to define me. Which is also why I have a problem with the question : what do you do? and what people usually answer it with. Why does what I do as a career define what i "do". Anyway that's just me and my problems with the corporate world - which I will bash at some other point :)
So, when i found myself drowning (literally) in a sea of failure both personal and professional, I turned to yoga. I continued going for my morning practice sessions, I continued to teach twice a week - and used those classes to heal. Until, last saturday when I went for a Hatha 2 class at pure yoga and my body just didn't work with me. My hamstrings were so tight I couldn't even touch the floor without bending my knees, especially the left side. My shoulders were sore - mostly from many many vinyasa classes and my left knee was not at it's best that day. And my ever present fear of being not in control of my surroundings kicked in for all inversion asanas. So, in most asanas, I sat on my mat, looking around. And at one point when the teacher said, ok everyone can do a headstand? let's get into a regular headstand and then I will give you my variation of it - i wanted to be invisible, I wanted to sink into the ground, or exit the class - since none of this was possible, i went into my own inversion - a shoulder stand- and while upside down I felt my eyes burn with the threat of tears, I gulped the ball of emotion down my throat, which is damn difficult to do when you're in a shoulder stand and tried to not make a fool of myself in front of the entire class.
But the tears slipped out anyway - i cursed myself, I cursed my fears, i was angry at my body for not living up to it's standard, I was disappointed at my practice - what had i learnt in all these years, if every time I come to a Hatha class i feel inadequate?
Thankfully, the effects of being in a shoulder stand kicked in and I calmed myself down. My breath came back into my body and I realised, I was doing exactly what I tell my students not to do - trying to be like the person on the mat next to you taking option # 3 / an advanced option. I wanted to do the crazy headstand variation, I wanted to put my head behind my head, I wanted to have my legs up in the air sideways while my ear rested on the mat - i did not want to sit on my mat doing nothing. And then I realised, I'm such a sore loser - which is ok. But I took it too personally - that I got attached to it too much. I was letting a teacher, a single pose or a set of poses or the inability to do a headstand define my practice. That was just absolutely crazy. Me, who made fun of folks who thought yoga was just a physical practice and swapped it with pilates on and off - me, I was thinking of myself as a failed yogi, because I couldn't excel in yoga physically. How utterly sad. My practice wasn't letting me down - was letting my practice down.
I needed to be more appreciative of the gorgeousness that my practice is - what it allows me to do - what it allows me to teach - and what it doesn't allow me to do - because that then means I have many many years left to get there, many more hours of consistent practice. Consistently going back to the mat, consistently falling over and yet getting back up again to give that headstand another chance and try. I need to be softer on my practice, softer on my body, softer on my self : because no one is going to do that for me - but me myself. I need to be more graceful in life - in success and in failure, in triumph and in disappointment, in welcoming and in letting go. My mother had told me the last time I was home - you need to slow down, take smaller, softer steps, be more graceful, you don't need to be running in your head all the time and you certainly don't need to be running physically. And as i stepped out of that yoga studio that day her words came back to me as i stood under the shower.
I needed to get over my disappointments at work, I needed to move on from this thing that wasn't going anywhere, I needed to keep going back to my mat for that headstand prep - with grace, and without grudges.
So I modeled my class on Monday night on living in grace. Remembering that you don't have to get it right all the time and being more or less ok when you don't. And to complement my intention, my class plan was devoid of any crazy core work, but was more like that came to my body naturally - a quiet silent dance, a seamless flow from one asana to another - no holding plank for a minute. And I found myself taking the easiest option myself throughout the class because my body still didn't feel great.
I went to this beautiful Indian classical music concert hosted in Esplanade featuring Kaushiki Chakraborty (hindustani vocals) and Rakesh Chaurasia (flute) and it was magical. The ease with which the both of them took their tunes to lovely highs and then let it fall down to the deepest lows amazed me - all without losing their breath at all - or constant smiles on their faces. It also helped with my affirmation of living in grace the following week. It was also my playlist for the Monday class.
When I think of being graceful i think of the a flow that I think Daphne taught us long back:
High Lunge -- to
Veerabhadrasana 3 (warrior 3 pose) -- to
Ardha Chandrasana (half moon pose) -- to
Ardha Chandra Chapasana (half moon variation) -- to
Natrajasana (dancer's pose) --ending with
Tadasana (mountain pose)
I find Natarajasana the ultimate expression of grace in my yoga practice - it combines attention, balance of mind, body, breath and grace in how it all comes together. Of course, the fact that it comes from someone we call the first yogi : shiva, make it even more special to me - since he was a mesmerizing dancer according to the scriptures.
Although, I didn't add this to my monday class since it wasn't an easy transition for beginners in yoga to make, I definitely practiced it for myself before class began to feel more like a dancer before my students walked in.
And as always i end another pose on the magic of yoga, with gratitude for the things it teaches me - for the shapes my body moves into and the shapes my body doesn't move into. It teaches me to hold onto things that make me grow and let go of things not meant for me - with grace.
Namaste.
I've learnt from them to be graceful - to take things slow - to enjoy the process of learning instead of focusing on the results, to be humble in your achievements and to not let failure and disappointment bog you down (not for too long anyway). I've had a rough couple of weeks, personally because I want something so badly to happen - and realised very recently that it's probably going to continue going to be a dream - and something that i will have to let go of soon, for my own good. Maintaining the balance between effort and detachment is my theme for living life. A very dear friend of mine, once told me that usually in life between your work and your personal life, there'll always be ups and downs - very rarely (and moments that you need to be immensely grateful for) will both of them be perfectly harmonious. And in the lives that most of us lead, as long as one of those aspects is more or less ok, you can (with some help) pull the other one up. So you're basically riding a seesaw at all points in time.
As sad as that sounded at that point in time - i realised that my experiences overtime have shown that to be true. And suddenly i was in this position where my personal life had taken a massive whack on the face and my work was collapsing as well. I'm usually a strong person in the sense, that I do not depend on my job to define me or add to my identity in totality, which is probably why I do so many things outside of just a 9-5 job. I'd be terrified for one thing to define me. Which is also why I have a problem with the question : what do you do? and what people usually answer it with. Why does what I do as a career define what i "do". Anyway that's just me and my problems with the corporate world - which I will bash at some other point :)
So, when i found myself drowning (literally) in a sea of failure both personal and professional, I turned to yoga. I continued going for my morning practice sessions, I continued to teach twice a week - and used those classes to heal. Until, last saturday when I went for a Hatha 2 class at pure yoga and my body just didn't work with me. My hamstrings were so tight I couldn't even touch the floor without bending my knees, especially the left side. My shoulders were sore - mostly from many many vinyasa classes and my left knee was not at it's best that day. And my ever present fear of being not in control of my surroundings kicked in for all inversion asanas. So, in most asanas, I sat on my mat, looking around. And at one point when the teacher said, ok everyone can do a headstand? let's get into a regular headstand and then I will give you my variation of it - i wanted to be invisible, I wanted to sink into the ground, or exit the class - since none of this was possible, i went into my own inversion - a shoulder stand- and while upside down I felt my eyes burn with the threat of tears, I gulped the ball of emotion down my throat, which is damn difficult to do when you're in a shoulder stand and tried to not make a fool of myself in front of the entire class.
But the tears slipped out anyway - i cursed myself, I cursed my fears, i was angry at my body for not living up to it's standard, I was disappointed at my practice - what had i learnt in all these years, if every time I come to a Hatha class i feel inadequate?
Thankfully, the effects of being in a shoulder stand kicked in and I calmed myself down. My breath came back into my body and I realised, I was doing exactly what I tell my students not to do - trying to be like the person on the mat next to you taking option # 3 / an advanced option. I wanted to do the crazy headstand variation, I wanted to put my head behind my head, I wanted to have my legs up in the air sideways while my ear rested on the mat - i did not want to sit on my mat doing nothing. And then I realised, I'm such a sore loser - which is ok. But I took it too personally - that I got attached to it too much. I was letting a teacher, a single pose or a set of poses or the inability to do a headstand define my practice. That was just absolutely crazy. Me, who made fun of folks who thought yoga was just a physical practice and swapped it with pilates on and off - me, I was thinking of myself as a failed yogi, because I couldn't excel in yoga physically. How utterly sad. My practice wasn't letting me down - was letting my practice down.
I needed to be more appreciative of the gorgeousness that my practice is - what it allows me to do - what it allows me to teach - and what it doesn't allow me to do - because that then means I have many many years left to get there, many more hours of consistent practice. Consistently going back to the mat, consistently falling over and yet getting back up again to give that headstand another chance and try. I need to be softer on my practice, softer on my body, softer on my self : because no one is going to do that for me - but me myself. I need to be more graceful in life - in success and in failure, in triumph and in disappointment, in welcoming and in letting go. My mother had told me the last time I was home - you need to slow down, take smaller, softer steps, be more graceful, you don't need to be running in your head all the time and you certainly don't need to be running physically. And as i stepped out of that yoga studio that day her words came back to me as i stood under the shower.
I needed to get over my disappointments at work, I needed to move on from this thing that wasn't going anywhere, I needed to keep going back to my mat for that headstand prep - with grace, and without grudges.
So I modeled my class on Monday night on living in grace. Remembering that you don't have to get it right all the time and being more or less ok when you don't. And to complement my intention, my class plan was devoid of any crazy core work, but was more like that came to my body naturally - a quiet silent dance, a seamless flow from one asana to another - no holding plank for a minute. And I found myself taking the easiest option myself throughout the class because my body still didn't feel great.
I went to this beautiful Indian classical music concert hosted in Esplanade featuring Kaushiki Chakraborty (hindustani vocals) and Rakesh Chaurasia (flute) and it was magical. The ease with which the both of them took their tunes to lovely highs and then let it fall down to the deepest lows amazed me - all without losing their breath at all - or constant smiles on their faces. It also helped with my affirmation of living in grace the following week. It was also my playlist for the Monday class.
When I think of being graceful i think of the a flow that I think Daphne taught us long back:
High Lunge -- to
Veerabhadrasana 3 (warrior 3 pose) -- to
Ardha Chandrasana (half moon pose) -- to
Ardha Chandra Chapasana (half moon variation) -- to
Natrajasana (dancer's pose) --ending with
Tadasana (mountain pose)
I find Natarajasana the ultimate expression of grace in my yoga practice - it combines attention, balance of mind, body, breath and grace in how it all comes together. Of course, the fact that it comes from someone we call the first yogi : shiva, make it even more special to me - since he was a mesmerizing dancer according to the scriptures.
Although, I didn't add this to my monday class since it wasn't an easy transition for beginners in yoga to make, I definitely practiced it for myself before class began to feel more like a dancer before my students walked in.
And as always i end another pose on the magic of yoga, with gratitude for the things it teaches me - for the shapes my body moves into and the shapes my body doesn't move into. It teaches me to hold onto things that make me grow and let go of things not meant for me - with grace.
Namaste.
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