I'm thinking of the expressiveness of the body. I'm listening to a lot of passionate ballads (thank you, Beyonce) and thinking of nothing but explosive dance routines. And I'm no dancer. I'm thinking about how Seane Corn talks of the body as a vehicle for prayer. I'm thinking about watching an inspired performance and how the body really does seem to be a conduit for grace. I'm thinking that it is possible for the body to light up with the practice...I'm thinking that the body might just be the bridge between the mind, which desires divinity, and Divinity itself.
So, now I'm going to really piss off all my teachers who have spent so much time teaching me alignment and encourage everyone reading this to attempt the following: next time you are practicing, at home or in class, forget about everything except the potential for your body to be the carrier of inspiration. For just this one practice, worry less about if you're doing it right and more about what is moving through you. You are a channel for everything larger than yourself! Creativity, imagination, passion, grace, generosity, exuberance, f-ing ecstasy...it might just be in the air around you, and I dare you to consider how you can use your practice to actually open to the presence of these things.
Forget all the rest. Put your hands down, put your feet down and breathe like the breath might just be liquid gold coursing through you.
Close your eyes and have the most beautiful practice you have ever had in your life. I don't care if you look like a show-off, like a hippy-dippy, like a bad impersonation of a modern dancer, like one possessed. Maybe you don't look like anything at all. Just practice like you would dance alone in your room to your favorite song. Imagine being absolutely bowled over by bliss, and imagine that your body is the only path for that bliss to travel from the ether to your ever-loving mind and heart.
It doesn't matter if you're in a class with a hundred people or if you're at home in your tiny apartment, dressed in tattered sweats, listening to a well-worn yoga dvd (and you feel like you can't do half the poses)...it doesn't matter. Turn it off if you want. Just get in there with your body and turn off the editor. You have so much genius in you.
I want to hear stories of instant enlightenment people!! Or at least of one really really really delicious practice...
Love, love, love,
YogaLia
3 comments:
Yup... to me, this is yoga.
Connecting to my breath and surrendering to the spontaneous movement of prana within which leads to asana... the perfect asana in that moment to allow my body to open.
Not so much imposing shapes on the body externally.
It's liberating, it's fulfilling, it's dancing with the divine.
And it's bloody hard to teach!
Love ya work,
KL
Thank you, KL!
I would imagine it's SUPER hard to teach! What with all the fundamentals that have to go into a class, which you cannot blithely ignore (as I can do in a blog post!)...but I have found for myself that I pick this up from osmosis from the teachers I love.
So, you may be surprised how much your students are getting that you don't even hear about.
It's the same way in which it is said a person can have a momentary enlightenment of their own just being around someone who is enlightened themselves...I think it's this way with yoga teachers.
If YOU understand the practice deeply, I think students must just sort of absorb it into their bloodstream during class.
Thank you for reading!
xo
YogaLia
Lia my friend,
Brilliant as ever! This is true Yoga -- not that I'm a great authority, but I have been doing Yoga since l968. And the more I have studied, the further removed I became from letting Yoga teach me what I needed in my body and my spirit.
I'm not knocking alignment. I just think it's overrated. When we let our bodies feel our Yoga, true alignment comes naturally.
Brava for putting it into words so eloquently. I hope that when you do get certified, it won't spoil your natural grasp of the practice.
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