Now we begin…
It’s that time of year again. Back to school, begin a new year, turn over a new leaf. Even though it’s many years since I sat in a classroom, September always seems to bring that feeling with it of new beginnings.
Beginnings are an interesting concept. I began practicing yoga as a physical practice when I was eighteen, at an introductory course at university that instantly ignited my desire to do more yoga and try to incorporate it into my life. Over the years I dipped in and out of yoga, mostly depending on whether or not the local gym had a class wherever I was living in my twenties and early thirties. Every time I came into contact with yoga I felt renewed, reinvigorated, but I didn’t start to really commit to it until my mid thirties.
Returning to live in London after a spell living in Hong Kong, I was lucky enough to be a short walk from a yoga studio in my local area and so for the first time was immersing myself in yoga as a holistic practice; rather than it being once a week I was regularly building it into my schedule. The difference I started to feel in my life was exhilarating, and after reading an article about the benefits of a daily yoga practice, I decided to set myself a challenge in the upcoming year to do 300 days of yoga. With an all studios pass to one of the best studio franchises in London I experimented with different styles of yoga, practicing under different teachers, pushing my body, and slowly pushing my mind too, as I unpeeled deeper layers that yoga was opening up for me. After my 300 days challenge (which I exceeded by one day!) I was looking at yoga through a new lens, and I felt hungry for more; I wanted to go deeper in my practice. It felt like a new beginning.
When one year ago - in September, the month of new beginnings - the studio I had spent the past few years growing my practice with offered teacher training I immediately signed up. At the time I wasn’t even sure if teaching was a step for me, but the opportunity to deepen my practice was too good to ignore.
Now we begin, or now we begin the practice of yoga, is a translation of Patanjali’s first sutra, 1.1. Patanjali’s sutras are one of the founding philosophical texts of yoga and the first time I came across them was when I started my teacher training. I went into teacher training curious to learn more, but with a clear thought that I was learning how to enhance my physical practice and learn to share it with others. I was so wrong! The physical practice was just one element of yoga and I became as immersed in the philosophy as I did in the physical element of the practice.
Although I first stepped into a yoga class over twenty years ago, ‘now we begin’ still resonates with me as much now as it would have back then. Every new exploration of yoga starts a new journey for me. My physical practice, teacher training, learning to teach, growing as a teacher, learning how to offer class options, looking internally and keeping open and curious. The list is endless and the assimilation is constant. But each step of the way I am learning and growing, matching my mind and body and navigating through life with yoga as my guide.
This is also a new beginning; writing a blog to share my approach to yoga, how I am growing as a teacher and what I am learning. The next series of posts in my blog are going to travel through the chakras, sharing what they mean to me and how they are influencing my life, both on and off the mat. I look forward to you joining me.
atha yoganushasanam (1:1)
Now we begin.
