Pretentious attitudes, long hair, man buns, Lulu Lemon, tight pants, overly bendy, over complicated, stretching disguised as a workout. This was basically my general perception of Yoga and those doing Yoga up to the beginning of this month. Was it a bit (quite) prejudgemental? Well, ya, but I’m not sure this was totally my fault.
My only experiences with Yoga to date hadn’t really been the most positive. Besides my one-off encounters with the friendly but strange hippyish types practicing their Yoga, hoolihooping and tightrope walking skills at the beach my only other Yoga experience was a gruelling sweat fest my boss had taken me on one afternoon at a hot Yoga studio in Kamloops. More than just generally hating my life for the 90 minute duration I also had enjoyed a lot of aggressive sweating, a deep regret for the 3 beers I had earlier that day and a lot of pain trying to complete the over extended poses the advance class was taking us through and all while attempting to show my boss I could handle the challenge.
Needless to say this slightly impacted my perception of the activity. That being said I did have a lot of friends who regularly attended classes so I knew there had to be something more too it than my first glance but I just figured Yoga was a somewhat more of a trendy version of the gym where you could go and sweat buckets.
Reserving Judgment
This months mindfulness challenge was really changing my perception of my life, my weaknesses and my strengths. Through meditation and mindfulness practice I was becoming more self-aware, more cognizant of my emotions/distractions, finding a better balance in my life and even starting to become more productive. I told my friends that wanted to look further into this new internal exploration and almost unilaterally they all suggested I give Yoga another try.
I knew Yoga had parallels to meditation and mindfulness but due to my previous experience of sweat, pain and frustration I was a little skeptical. Not wanting to let my predispositions hold me back from experiencing something potentially positive though I thought I would put aside my judgments and give this Yoga thing another shot. I reached out to a local Yoga studio that far and wide seemed to be the most popular within my friend circle, Moksha Kelowna.
I was a little concerned about the studio’s size and popularity that they wouldn’t consider my personal exploration worth their time but fortunately the manager responded to my request almost instantly; she was very intrigued by what I was doing and was happy to offer me an interview and guided tour. She wrote that “(Moksha Kelowna) was very passionate about sharing the benefits and possibilities that yoga and mediation had to offer.” And that this fell within the ‘Seven Pillars’ they use as the foundation in everything they do:
- Be accessible
- Be peace
- Be healthy
- Live green
- Community support
- Reach out
- Live to learn
I was surprised to see how many of their ‘Seven Pillars’ I identified with in my own life and what I was doing with ‘Scale My Life.’ I figured it couldn’t be all bad if we at least had this in common.
Pulling Back the Yoga Curtain
I sat down with Jane Howell the manager of Moksha Kelowna at their studio in the lower Mission area of town. Jane was roughly my age and had come here from Australia 5 years ago for a ski season . She said she only meant to stay for the one season but quickly fell in love with the Okanagan, the “lovely Canadian people,” the yoga community and beautiful four season lifestyle (can you blame her?).
Jane conveyed that one of the best parts of Moksha was that it was a community both inside and outside of the studio. The lobby was setup purposely to be a social gathering area where members could connect and instructors could hangout and chat before and after classes with anyone who wanted to talk. Outside the studio Moksha hosted many community events like hikes, bikes, and even a training for the cross the Okanagan lake swim. This peaked my interest as the cross the lake swim was one of my big goals for this year.
I could definitely understand why she found such a connection with this particular studio but I still wanted to know more about what she found so compelling about Yoga itself. So I asked her flat out, “If I meditate, Why do I need to do Yoga? Other than some obvious physical benefits.” I expected an answer along the lines of “Yoga is a superior form of meditation,” but that’s not what I got at all…
“Yoga is just one type of a physical mindfulness practice.” she told me. “Some people’s ‘Yoga’ is rock climbing, some people’s ‘Yoga’ is surfing but I believe meditation is the ‘half to’ if you want to learn to be more mindful. Yoga is the practice the serves to help you to become more balanced both physically and emotionally. There’s is a link between our physical and mental or emotional sides so for instance if you’re feeling depressed or sad your body will naturally regress downwards. Your back will hunch over, your chest and shoulders will curl in and drop down to protect your heart. Where as someone with more confidence will stand tall with their chest out. The physical exercise of Yoga stretches your muscles and extends your body so that eventually that physical layer will start to effect your emotional layer and you’ll begin to feel more positive or more confident naturally.”
This concept confounded me. I had never made the connection between the physical body and our internal emotions before. I had obviously noticed that when people regularly went to the gym that they would walk around with their chest pumped out and shoulders held back asserting their self confidence (or sometimes arrogance) but I had never thought that there would possibly be a polarized effect on the body through negative emotions.
She went on to explain that as people stretched and broke through certain physical barriers that they would often breakthrough emotional barriers as well and it wasn’t uncommon for people to cry in the studio as they went through different emotions linked to their physical barriers.
“Yoga has a ripple effect into your life in many ways,” she continued. “To be in a state of distress, surrounded by heat while balancing in a challenging position and to come back to your breath and be able to find balance and calm is a skill that can have great effect on your personal and professional life. Whether it’s the stress of heat in the Yoga room or the stress from an approaching deadline, if you can stay relaxed you can concur anything.”
Meditation and Yoga
My friend Amanda practising her meditation
I was really surprised to find the amount of parallels both meditation and Yoga had in common. The breath focus, the mental clarity through challenging environments, and even the mindfulness practice. Meditation was about strengthening your control over your mind so that you would be more aware when your mind wandered and you could attempt to self correct. Similarly Yoga was about strengthening your control over your body which then allowed you to notice when your body wondering or out of alignment because of some bad food you ate (McDonalds) or exhaustion you were experiencing.
The most interesting thing Jane told me was that like meditation, “Yoga was not easy. To make the effort and come in, fight through the physical and mental challenges of the class and then come back consistently to ‘do the work’ was really hard, but like meditation the more you put into it the more the rewards came both physically and mentally.” She said that Yoga was a practice, that there were no experts but just by building and learning you could incrementally build your physical and mental control over your body and mind. She finished by saying that “Yoga and meditation were about creating space in your life. Often we are so distracted by the build up of stress and personal frustrations that we become lost. You ask yourself “how did I get here?” But through mindfulness practice we can build our mental muscle so we can better control these challenging situations and bring balance back to our lives.”
I really enjoyed this perspective, the idea that mindfulness was like building a muscle through constant practice and by taking the time to train it we could acheive better control over our lives on a daily basis.
Looking back over our conversation I realized the reason I hadn’t previously enjoyed Yoga at all. It wasn’t because I had been drug through a 90 minute sweat-a-thon for my first time (although that didn’t help), it was because I wasn’t going there for the right reasons. I thought the point of Yoga was solely physical and that people were just punishing themselves to sweat off fat and stretch out their muscles. Looking at it now I realized that the physical challenge of Yoga was only half of the value; that Yoga was the Yin to meditations Yang in that it balanced both body and mind to create a stronger personal awareness and internal strength.
I decided to commit myself to giving Yoga another try and expressed this reaffirmation to Jane. She kindly offered me a free month’s pass to tryout their facility and explore my new passion for physical and mental development.
Returning to the Heat
A few days after my initial interview I came in for my first real Moksha Yoga experience. With my girlfriends pink Yoga mat in hand (I’ve really got to get my own mat..) I ventured into the hot room again. I have to say my physical experience was pretty similar to my first attempt. Sweat poured off my body as I attempted to bend and contort my body along with the far more experienced people around me. The difference though was in my mental attitude. Even though I was physically uncomfortable I strived to keep my mental state calm and focused. When I would find myself getting worked up or distressed I would simply focus on my breath and try to find an internal calm.
When I left I was quite surprised to notice how great I felt. Sure I was soaked in sweat but physically and mentally I felt really refreshed. It was like a breath of fresh air for my mind and body. And I know that sounds hokey but it’s really the best way I can think to describe it. I have to admit that I had a new appreciation for Yoga and those who practiced it. I wasn’t going to grow my hair out or rock some man-tights (except for my bike shorts I guess) but I was definitely intrigued to keep building this new practice for my body and my mind.
