Knowing me

Knowing me

As I have started to practice Yoga, and I learn a bit more about breathing and relaxing, and holding my body in positions that would help me to recalibrate, to find my center, to be balanced, I discover that my knowledge of my strength or my muscles capability is quite limited. I can come up with many reason why is that we sometimes think one way or another about the way we believe our body will response. I for once, tend to think that my left leg will be weaker, yet as I try certain poses my right leg seems to be the one to struggle when it comes to balancing. Flexibility is a big help, but so strange that it is not in all directions.  Some other discoveries bring the way I handle discomfort or pain. If I relax, if I am actually capable of not fighting anymore my mind actually seems to go someplace else, and the pose seem to just flow easily, but it takes an effort, a conscientious effort to focus on relaxing so the rest will do their part.

I don't know really why is that I started this practice, once I was invited by my friend Hope to attend a free class she would be directing. I was a little uneasy about it because I tend to have problems following instructions that involve left or right, and knowing I could not really kneel on the left knee directly on the scar that runs from my patella down about 10 cm. I had only done some poses with my niece while visiting in Mexico, and she was actually pretty good at guiding me into certain poses without hurting my knee. In any case, I really did not understand why people would practice Yoga. To relax?To become flexible? To understand others better?

I followed my friend in her log as she described some of her own discoveries in her journey as a yogini and I then felt pretty intrigue. 

The only other thing I had done in my life that gave me this kind of outlet was running. Running would help my brain to stop the fights of the day. 

I wanted so badly to be able to not feel afraid of what ever this Yoga would bring, but I was. I couldn't just go and sign into a class. I gave myself all kind of excuses. I had a free pass given to me for this well known place The Yoga Collective, and I just stored it in the glove compartment of my car. A couple of years went by, and finally Hope was opening her own studio. So I jump into the opportunity, even when I knew it would may be difficult (I have this left/right problem still, and I was still very afraid of what I would find about myself).

The meaning each one of us give to this I supposed is different, what we search and what this practice help us to accomplish only time will tell, but in the mean time I keep discovering my body, my strengths and my weaknesses and my capacity to evolve into a better person, becoming more gracious, more aware of my own expectations, and accepting all my limitations knowing that they can only mean a possibility for improvement.