Yoga isn't a cure-all for me. It's not a way to meet women. It's not a replacement for Christianity or a way to rebel against a Catholic upbringing. For me, it's multifaceted exercise and cultivation. I'm big on self-cultivation. I think there are plenty of ways in which I feel I won some kind of lottery that I didn't know I'd entered. However, for me, "good enough" isn't usually good enough and I must always use what I have and not take anything for granted. Yoga is one of the tools I use to take on that personal project. Once, I self-cultivated myself into shaving left-handed and now I shave each side of my face with the respective hand with equal and consistent results.
It's an unconventional undertaking, but it's mine, damn it!
I also like that yoga can be strengthening, loosening, tightening, lengthening, compacting, and expanding. I can focus or I can melt. I can build up weaker parts and abilities, I can temper stronger ones. I can also conduct maintenance in a way by doing yoga. This is the only body I have and due especially to the health problems that run in my family and the lack of health insurance, I feel as if I should care for it.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Begin Somewhere, Just Begin
Some people don't get yoga. I wasn't one of those people, but I just hadn't given it much thought. Then in my fourth year of touring with Ringling Brothers, one of my fellow clowns joined up and it turned out he had been a yoga instructor and was interested in having class. By this time, yoga had been showing up in magazines more often, its physical and mental benefits being studied and laid out for all to examine.
I tried it and I liked it.
After I left the show, I didn't touch it for a while. I had even been living back home in West Des Moines, Iowa and was already plunking money into a YMCA membership. I maybe thought about it once or twice, but never followed up on the curiosity enough to seek out a local studio. I didn't even think about taking one of the Y classes, which as I've found out, comes with a stigma of its own amongst some in the yoga community.
My next close encounter was via a co-worker on the next show I toured with. It was more educational and insightful than inspiring. Being exposed to her and her yoga practice was a lesson in, well – I'll practice being diplomatic:
To hear her talk about her yoga practice and her vegetarianism and her search for enlightenment, you'd think she had been at it for a while. However, you'd likely think that after you were finished rolling your eyes, because to me she came off as one of those people who sounded as if she were simultaneously trying to convince herself. It turned out she was fairly new to yoga and fairly new to vegetarianism. After further observation and analysis, it seemed by my assessment – a possibly and likely unfair one – that she was an insecure woman submerging herself in a self-help baptismal process to become the person she wanted to be. And if you asked her about it, she'd go into an explanation or discussion that would likely cause one to roll one's eyes again as she sounded exactly like any one of the transformational books she was currently reading. I had learned exactly what I now know I don't want to be as someone who practices – and hopefully someday teaches – yoga: I don't want to be some flake who immediately turns people off to yoga.
That description didn't end very diplomatically. But that's one thing I've been learning and dealing with constantly, even before my delving into yoga: every time is different from every other. Sometimes you're successful and other times not so much. To expect consistent excellency and impeccable perfection is to drive oneself crazy and I am good at that.
Anyway, during one of my many breaks from touring, I decided to get off the pot and actually seek out a studio in the greater Des Moines area. After consulting a longtime friend and yoga instructor about the area and people and studios she knows I checked out my first studio. My search didn't go far beyond that first studio because after a trial period I liked it so much I didn't bother looking anywhere else. And that's how about three years ago Firehouse became my yoga studio too.
I tried it and I liked it.
After I left the show, I didn't touch it for a while. I had even been living back home in West Des Moines, Iowa and was already plunking money into a YMCA membership. I maybe thought about it once or twice, but never followed up on the curiosity enough to seek out a local studio. I didn't even think about taking one of the Y classes, which as I've found out, comes with a stigma of its own amongst some in the yoga community.
My next close encounter was via a co-worker on the next show I toured with. It was more educational and insightful than inspiring. Being exposed to her and her yoga practice was a lesson in, well – I'll practice being diplomatic:
To hear her talk about her yoga practice and her vegetarianism and her search for enlightenment, you'd think she had been at it for a while. However, you'd likely think that after you were finished rolling your eyes, because to me she came off as one of those people who sounded as if she were simultaneously trying to convince herself. It turned out she was fairly new to yoga and fairly new to vegetarianism. After further observation and analysis, it seemed by my assessment – a possibly and likely unfair one – that she was an insecure woman submerging herself in a self-help baptismal process to become the person she wanted to be. And if you asked her about it, she'd go into an explanation or discussion that would likely cause one to roll one's eyes again as she sounded exactly like any one of the transformational books she was currently reading. I had learned exactly what I now know I don't want to be as someone who practices – and hopefully someday teaches – yoga: I don't want to be some flake who immediately turns people off to yoga.
That description didn't end very diplomatically. But that's one thing I've been learning and dealing with constantly, even before my delving into yoga: every time is different from every other. Sometimes you're successful and other times not so much. To expect consistent excellency and impeccable perfection is to drive oneself crazy and I am good at that.
Anyway, during one of my many breaks from touring, I decided to get off the pot and actually seek out a studio in the greater Des Moines area. After consulting a longtime friend and yoga instructor about the area and people and studios she knows I checked out my first studio. My search didn't go far beyond that first studio because after a trial period I liked it so much I didn't bother looking anywhere else. And that's how about three years ago Firehouse became my yoga studio too.
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