Inner Push

 

 

In establishing and deepening our chosen contemplative practice, we develop an ethereal love-relationship with a principle completely beyond what and who we normally take ourselves to be.....Through this process of introversion, there occurs a profound clearing. Instead of an inner labyrinth, we find an inner sanctuary - one that can be accessed for guidance and perspective at any time.  (Gitte Beschgard, The Gift of Consciousness) 

Every now and then, it’s interesting to consider why we practice yoga. One, five, twenty years into practice the reasons change.  Knowing why we are practicing, why we are doing what we are doing, can help us to stay committed to the path, to know what seeds we are planting that may blossom in the future. 

I signed-up for my first yoga class  - almost 30 years ago now – to get myself off of the couch in the evening.  I was near the end of a six-year doctoral program, no longer so overwhelmed by the magnitude of study that I had more energy in the evening for just TV.  It was spring and I was ready to try something new.  I signed-up for a Hatha yoga class offered through the town rec department.  It was held on Tuesday evenings in a funky loft in downtown Amherst and from the very first class I was hooked.  I thought I was in “good shape” because I jogged every day so was amazed at how hard it was, how much energy it took to straighten my spine, stretch my stiff legs and arms, open my collapsed chest.  I was amazed at how tight I was and could see the potential of more flexibility.   I continued going weekly for the next few years wanting to feel more of what I felt after each class and more freedom in my body.

After graduate school, I moved to San Francisco for a teaching job and there found my first Iyengar yoga class.  The best part of my job at the University of San Francisco was the twice weekly free yoga classes offered to faculty and staff.  The teacher was by chance Iyengar certified and I was blown away after my first class.  This was something very different from what I had been doing for the last two years in Amherst.  The attention to the leg muscles and bones, the movement of the spine using the arms, the lifting of ribs up and out was more intense, precise, and absorbing for my body/mind. It was a hard job teaching college students for the first time in a department where I was not completely welcome.  Moving alone to a new city I was homesick and lonely.  Yoga class was one place where I felt welcome, made new friends, felt happy.  This was something I wanted more of.  In addition to the classes at USF, I started taking more Iyegnar classes at local studios. I was amazed when in Spring I started to do things I never had imagined would be possible like standing on my hands and head.  I remember the three hour class where I pushed up from the floor into my first backbend.  It was thrilling and fun to move in these new ways, to meet new people through practice, to watch how beautifully my teachers held themselves.  I would say that I practiced then because it was fun, engaging, felt great, and connected me with others.

After a year in San Francisco, I returned to Western Mass where in the mid-1990s there were no certified Iyengar teachers.   Shortly after returning, however, I by chance found one and then two others who were “Iyengar” inspired.  I wanted to develop more skill in yoga, keep my body strong and flexible.  I started taking three and four classes a week and going to workshops with Senior Iyengar teachers who came to the area. It was still mostly the physical feelings and the community of people I met each week that drew me to practice like this for the next several years.   

A few years after being back in the valley my lovely daughter E was born and for the next ten years yoga had to take a back seat to caring for her.  Along with making a living and caring for an infant and young child, there wasn't much time for anything else.  Back then, I attended two classes a week but didn’t have the time or energy for much of a home practice.  On the rare occasion I mustered the will to pull out the yoga mat at home, my daughter would often want to join in jumping on my back during adho muka svanasana pose, climbing up by leg in supta padangustasana, jumping up and down to show mommy what she could to too! Yoga was challenging during these years.  I often felt disappointed at all that I could not do.  I compared myself to others in class who I though did things better.  I felt tired and worried that I might not have the energy for the demands of class.  I wondered if some poses might just not be possible for me and if my teacher judged me for not being such a good student.  Still, I was pushed from an inner source to continue with those two weekly classes.  I wouldn’t say practice had a spiritual component, but I was starting to wonder why yoga was called a spiritual practice.  What could possibly be spiritual about stretching the spine and opening the chest?  

Around the time my daughter turned ten, something shifted inside of me.  I longed for more yoga.   Perhaps this was because my daughter was needing me less and less at least in the day to day physical closeness and care that is part of early childhood.  Her growing had freed up my time and energy.   I wanted to deepen my practice even though I didn’t really know what that meant or how I would do it.  Around this time two women from the studio where I studied told me about the workshops that Peentz Dubble offered in Vermont.  I didn’t think I had the stamina for a three-day workshop but encouraged by both these women I took a chance and signed-up.  Peentz it turned out was just what I was looking for.  Something about her teaching  - I think related to the fact that she was a certified in the tradition, had been teaching for almost thirty years, had gone to India many times to study with the Iyengars  - opened up a door for me to enter into a deeper practice that was more integrated, discerning and beyond just the physical aspects. She opened me up to the study of yoga philosophy.

As luck would have it the fall after my first summer retreat with Peentz I got a job that took me into Boston every week near the studio where Peentz taught. Thus began what has been eleven years of ongoing study with her several times a week, during weekly summer retreat, through many years of teacher training and mentorship.  Peentz was the teacher who showed up when I was ready.  I practiced so I could learn more from her, to engage seriously with what she offered, to be closer to her.  Under her guidance, I explored yoga philosophy for the first time, the eight limbs of the practice, and this widened my understanding of what yoga offered. I wanted to see how to bring more yoga into the rest of my life not just the time spent on the mat.  Because she encourages self-reliance, to find the inner inspiration to study and practice, when she moved to Florida a few years ago – and I was no longer able to study with her regularly – my own practice did not falter.  I vowed to continue to study with her when I could and find other teachers.  I had faith that I would find the support I needed to continue on this path.

Each step towards more yoga seemed to come from a deeper place than my rational mind, an inner pushing. It was an organic process like a seed that begins to open up when the conditions are just right.  Over these last eleven years I kept asking what more with yoga, what next steps?  The answers I heard from my heart said - and continue to chant -  daily practice, teaching, study, devotion, surrender, gratitude.  I practice for strength and flexibility, for greater and greater integration of body, mind, and spirit, to know my inner self with more clarity and compassion.  Planting seeds for deeper connection to the inner light and possibilities for shining the light back out into the world.