As you know I have tried yoga in different capacities
through different studios and teachers. So why did I choose Ashtanga yoga. A
common phrase you may here Ashtangi’s use is it chose me.
Today we are a hard driven culture and our schedules are
very busy. We are hard on ourselves and set ourselves often hard goals. We
measure ourselves and compare ourselves to others. Often when you tell people
you do yoga, people grimace and say “it’s not for me” “I don’t like yogi’s” or “isn’t it boring”. Let me tell you its not just about stretching.
People believe a hard session at the gym, leaving you
feeling sore is the sign of a good workout. Or you could be a huge cardio junky
and obsessed with knowing the amount of calories you burn and feel your heart
race. But if you try to explain to people, you can get this from yoga, they
often don’t believe you. I’m a person who is a cardio junky. Cycling, running
and swimming are all activities I have taken on, and when training for the
marathon I saw pounds falling off me. I
had my family and friends telling me how
unhealthy I looked as I wasn’t replenishing my body the with correct food to
keep me fueled. But I was obsessed with exercise. I took on personal training
at the gym to help develop my strength as I constantly felt weak. The eating part
was the hardest for me as I was a salad junky, ate little protein and avoided
carbs, all I cared about was exercise The harder I trained the more I lost my appetite, and the more I forced
myself to eat or even drink the energy drinks my body needed. Now I still do
these workouts, but not as much as my yoga practice is up to 3-4 times weekly.
That said I still have to consider fuelling myself with nutritious food to give
me the strength and energy to practice well. Which I’m glad to say has got better.
As I said, I had
always been doing yoga and I had tried, power yoga, hatha yoga and Bikram.
Power yoga has a catchy name to meet those qualities I had explained above, and
fits well into the gym scene. Practices are fast paced and develop strength and
flexibility in one. Is there a difference between power yoga and vinyasa? That
I’m not so sure. I think the name just may attract a different audience. That
said I had been going to a ‘power’ practice
on Friday nights with a teacher (Daniel Uy) who was fun and could push his
students with also making them see the best in themselves. He gave good
variations for newbies and advance and never appeared to be standing there to
show off his sills as a practitioner. I
could see he went around to everyone. He was the one who had me thinking about
yoga teacher training. He was the one who I could believe was there for the
love of teaching. He planned a weekend retreat once, and I was gutted I was
unable to make it as I work on Saturdays. His classes held a pretty similar
format each week and I liked that I could see progression in the poses he put in.
One thing now that I find hard with vinyasa classes is you can wait weeks on
end before you come across poses you like or are nearly there with. He then
started to introduce an Ashtanga style class once a month. Unfortunately the
class was only an hour so we couldn’t even call it a half primary, however it
was strict and hard. I realized most of his vinyasa practice was built on the
series, but as a person really hard on myself and a high achiever their were
absolutely no short cuts in Ashtanga. Another thing I liked about Daniel is
that he would share stories about his practice and talk highly of his teachers.
I have since learnt you will always have your teacher. You will find who you
want to be your teacher and guide you the most. I take advice from all the
teachers in which I work but I know I may question some suggestions and get it
confirmed with my teacher Shareen.
I started to look online more about Ashtanga and found the
AYCT (Ashtanga Centre of Toronto) I learnt about Mysore and got intrigued, but
scared at the thought of it. I could see the dedication you needed, and once
again the marathon training had started so I wasn’t sure if I could commit to the
amount you need to in Ashtanga. It is not something I wanted to do by half.
I then came around to
find the Fireflow teacher training. When I signed up I wasn’t 100% what would
be involved, but that first weekend, hearing our first half would be based on Ashtanga
yoga I was so happy. I was happy to learn about where vinyasa has stemmed from
and how why, bunhda’s, and breathing are so essential for any practice. Half
way through our training vinyasa classes seem easy to compose and confident to
explain.
What I have learnt is
that I have come on this course, thinking I could teach at the end of it, but have
learnt this is a journey about myself. I am learning more about myself, as I
get inpatient with my practice, and at times lazy. To stay dedicated is hard,
it is a discipline, to look at where you are now but not where you could be.
My teacher said something
last night, that really does some up why I have chosen this. You will never be perfect at it,
if you are you are not working towards anything. There is always something
there to improve on, each and every one of us. This has always been my mentality
in everything. School, fitness, and knowledge. At school if I ever was graded
an A+ I was never actually satisfied as I was never given anything to work on.
For me I always want to get better and there is always room to get better, and
yes Ashtanga will give me that for the rest of my life.
Namaste
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